City bosses in talks to return tech jewel Arm to London

Ministers are in talks with City bosses as they attempt to bring British technology giant Arm back to the stock market in London.

Senior figures at the Treasury, business department and department for digital, culture, media and sport have held conversations with top brass from the London Stock Exchange about securing the prestigious float, the Daily Mail understands.

Arm, which is headquartered in Cambridge, is one of the UK’s most successful tech companies. It designs microchips used in devices from Apple iPhones to cars.

Call to Arm: Three government departments have held conversations with top brass at the LSE to bring British technology giant Arm back to the stock market in London

It was listed in London before being bought by Japanese conglomerate Softbank for £23billion in 2016.

But Softbank is now seeking to offload it and a stock market listing is being explored following the collapse of the planned sale to US giant Nvidia for £50billion.

In a blow to the LSE, which has been trying to attract more tech companies to its market to compete with the US, Softbank boss Masayoshi Son said last month he would prefer to float Arm in the US.

His snub has led David Schwimmer, the LSE’s chief executive, to seek help from ministers across Government to draw Arm back home.

Schwimmer declined to comment on the talks as the LSE unveiled its results for 2021 yesterday. 

The Mail’s Back British Tech campaign is pushing government and regulators to nurture the UK’s innovative businesses so they will be less likely to cave in to US listings and takeovers from foreign predators. 

If Arm wanted to attract more investors from the US market, experts say it could pursue a secondary listing in New York.

The takeover of Arm by Softbank and planned sale to Nvidia angered Arm’s customers, founders and British MPs, who argued the ‘crown jewel’ of the UK’s tech sector should not be flogged off and subsumed into an American giant.

Eventually the Nvidia deal collapsed under scrutiny from regulators, who feared that it would ruin Arm’s neutrality towards its customers.

It comes as the LSE reported a 44.6 per cent rise in profits to £1.8billion for 2021. It was its first set of annual results since buying data firm Refinitiv for £20billion, in a deal which some analysts had worried was too big for the LSE to handle.

But Schwimmer said the merging of the two companies, and the associated savings, was already ahead of target.

The LSE had hoped to save £88million last year, but hit £151million.