Boris Johnson saga may disArm UK

While the race to succeed Boris Johnson as the UK’s prime minister has just seen the runners reduced from four to three, the ructions within the ruling Conservative party over the past few weeks may have cut chip designer Arm’s listings options from two to one.

Its owner SoftBank has put on hold plans for a London initial public offering of Arm because of the political turmoil, report Anna Gross, Dan Thomas and Jim Pickard.

Boris Johnson had personally lobbied SoftBank’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son to secure at least a partial listing for the UK-based company on the London Stock Exchange.

He had appeared to be making progress, with talks at a “mature” stage between SoftBank, government officials and exchange executives over an unusual dual primary listing, in which Arm would have simultaneously floated in both New York and London, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

However, Johnson’s reluctance to step down forced mass resignations within his government, including those of investment minister Lord Gerry Grimstone and digital minister Chris Philp, who had both played leading roles in talks with the Japanese tech investor.

Their departures have led SoftBank to pause discussions about a UK listing of Arm in the next year. Instead, the political upheaval could pave the way for SoftBank to pursue a more straightforward US listing, which Son had originally favoured.

“There is a vacuum right now and [SoftBank] never really wanted to do it anyway,; they just wanted to play ball with the UK government.” said one official.

Whatever happens, Arm’s headquarters will remain in Cambridge, but a major listing that would have given a big boost to Britain’s tech sector and the government’s ambitions to attract such companies to London may now be slipping from their grasp.

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