FirstFT: Qualcomm eager to invest in Arm alongside rivals in upcoming IPO

The US chipmaker Qualcomm wants to buy a stake in Arm alongside its rivals and create a consortium that would maintain the UK chip designer’s neutrality in the highly competitive semiconductor market.

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank plans to list Arm on the New York Stock Exchange after Nvidia’s $66bn purchase collapsed this year. However, the IPO has sparked concern over the future ownership of the company, given its crucial role in the global technology sector.

“It’s a very important asset and it’s an asset which is going to be essential to the development of our industry,” Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s chief executive, told the Financial Times.

He added that Qualcomm, one of Arm’s biggest customers, could join forces with other chipmakers to buy Arm outright if the consortium making the purchase was “big enough”. Such a move could settle concerns over the corporate control of Arm after the upcoming IPO.

UK-headquartered Arm was listed in London and New York before SoftBank acquired it for £24.6bn in 2016. Some British politicians have called for the government to buy a “golden share” that would recognise the company’s role as a crucial strategic national asset.

Thanks for reading FirstFT Europe/Africa. Here’s the rest of today’s news — Jennifer

Five more stories in the news

1. EU leaders agree ban on majority of Russian oil imports The deal, which came at a summit in Brussels yesterday, will include oil and petroleum products but temporarily exempt crude delivered by pipeline to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as leaders seek to punish Vladimir Putin for his war on Ukraine.

2. Banks warn of ‘grim’ prospects for the pound A duo of Wall Street lenders has warned of a “grim” outlook for the UK currency, predicting that stubbornly high inflation and an economic slowdown will drive further declines. Sterling is trading near its lowest level since early 2021 against a basket of the UK’s trading partners’ currencies.

3. France apologises for Champions League chaos France has apologised for the botched security that marred the final in Paris on Saturday, but differences over who was to blame risked turning into a diplomatic row after Downing Street called the scenes “deeply upsetting and concerning”.

4. Executives ‘buy the dip’ at rate not seen since start of Covid Insider buying this month has been the strongest since March 2020, in what some Wall Street analysts said was an encouraging sign for the US stock market.

• What does it mean? “Insiders are saying ‘we don’t see a massive event coming’ . . . [that] these are really good buying opportunities,” said David Giroux, portfolio manager at T Rowe Price. US stocks recovered from a seven-week losing streak on Friday.

5. UK to water down audit and boardroom reforms Ministers have bowed to pressure to weaken planned overhauls, set to be unveiled today, dropping a proposal to require directors to sign off on companies’ internal controls and scaling back the number of companies under the most stringent requirements. Plans to make directors personally liable for internal controls over financial reporting were also dropped.

What do you think of the changes? Do the reforms go far enough? Let us know at firstft@ft.com and we may feature your response.

The day ahead

World Trade Organization meets The group’s dispute settlement body will hold its monthly gathering, when it is expected to discuss the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on the global trade rebound.

Economic data Eurozone inflation is expected to hit a high of 7.7 per cent for May — nearly quadruple the European Central Bank’s 2 per cent target. France, Italy and Switzerland publish first-quarter gross domestic product figures and France and Italy release flash consumer price indices for May. Germany has unemployment data for the same month. More here.

Julian Assange extradition deadline UK home secretary Priti Patel is due to decide on whether to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the US, where he faces up to life in prison for publishing military and diplomatic files.

Corporate earnings UK retailer B&M and water utility company Pennon Group publish full-year results. US tech company HP has second-quarter earnings.

Join the FT for The Global Boardroom on June 7-9, featuring US secretary of commerce Gina Raimondo, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda, former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and more. Register free today.

What else we’re reading and watching

Russia’s fraying economy Western sanctions to isolate the Kremlin over its war in Ukraine have changed little on Russian streets, but signs of strain are emerging in shuttered shops, disrupted supply chains and drying up job vacancies despite Vladimir Putin’s efforts to shield the country.

A UK wage-price spiral is unlikely Are we going back to the 1970s? The 21st-century UK labour market is far more individualistic than it was the last time the country faced a bout of high inflation, plus the unions that negotiated those pay settlements have shrunk in size and power, writes Sarah O’Connor.

We need a global compact on vaccines Monkeypox has appeared in the US and Europe, but it has been in west and central Africa for decades. Remarkably, we have a vaccine that can protect against it, but there was no private or public sector attempt to deploy it because of how we prioritise the health of western countries, writes Nina Schwalbe from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

How tech companies are betting on the metaverse The $201bn gaming industry — twice the size of the film business — has become a battleground as tech leaders vie to create the next iteration of the internet. The FT explores how gaming got so big, and whether it really can be the gateway into this new world.

The rich world’s fertility problem Rich nations can produce more of everything they need — except people. For a stable population, the average family needs to have 2.1 children: two to replace them, with “0.1” on top to make up for the people who won’t. But if wealthy states cannot increase their birth rates, they can attract migrants.

Travel

Super-chef Adam Handling perfectly marries sustainability and luxury at his first venture outside London, The Loch & The Tyne in Old Windsor, Berkshire, a country inn offering five-star food and gorgeous guest rooms.