SK Hynix may head up consortium to buy Arm

SK Hynix is reportedly considering forming a consortium to acquire UK chip designer Arm, however, the idea is said to be at a very early stage of planning, and Hynix may not actually proceed with the move. The potential purchase was disclosed in comments from SK Hynix vice chairman and co-CEO Park Jung-ho following the firm's …

[Ace2]

Why does anyone need to buy it? What’s wrong with it being a wildly successful independent company? FFS.

[bazza]

Perhaps as part of ensuring that it remains that way, protect it from idiot investors out to make a ton of profit instead of running the business.

There is a veritable fuck ton of companies, jobs, software that depend on Arm being preserved more or less as it is today. One thing worse than it being taken over by your deadliest competitor is it disappearing altogether through financial overgearing and unrealistic owner expectations. A consortium could insulate it from that and if properly constituted could address competition concerns too.

[Doctor Syntax]

Alternatively set the new PLC up with articles of association which limit the size of holding any individual beneficial shareholder can have.

[DS999]

That wouldn't prevent someone from taking control of it, by e.g. having a dozen front companies each purchase the maximum 5% or whatever and all vote together.

[Doctor Syntax]

They would be the beneficial owner of the holdings of the front companies. See https://www.dnb.co.uk/perspectives/corporate-compliance/what-is-beneficial-owner-company-why-does-it-matter.html

The words I chose were to prevent that happening.

[DS999]

That means you have to figure out who the beneficial owner is. With webs of offshore shell companies, good luck. They just have to vote the same on stuff they care about. They could even vote differently on stuff that doesn't matter to them to throw regulators off the scent.

Its cute you think your government would be able to see through that, when no government in the world has that figured out. Why do you think it is that so many oligarch yachts haven't been seized? And they didn't go to nearly the lengths that are possible to hide the beneficial owner.

[Something Anything]

Buy in case someone else does who may be a competitor. e.g. nVIDIA

[oiseau]

Why does anyone need to buy it?

Hmm ...

Because this:

"... doesn't have to be buying a majority of its shares to be able to control the company," he is reported as saying.

Be it one company or a consortium, it will still be a way to keep others players out of the market.

... with SoftBank said to be pursuing a valuation of at least $60bn for the firm.

Ahh ...

This will be one to buy chips while sitting on the bleachers for.

As one commentard posted recently about ARM:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How can a company with revenues of $2.6bn and pre-tax profits of $300k (projected) be worth $60bn?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I am quite eager to see is how, whoever pays $60bn for ARM, manages to do the infamous HP-Autonomy writedown shift, which is no longer novel, so to speak.

Aslo, who gets to be the patsy this time.

O.

[Anonymous Coward]

Opportunity missed

The UK government should nationalise it .... oh wait ....

[Cliffwilliams44]

Re: Opportunity missed

Seriously, you want the UK government to run one of the most important companies in the semiconductor industry? Talk about a recipe for disaster!

wait.... did I miss the sarcasm?