Cambridge MP warns ‘ownership matters’ for ‘strategically important’ company

Plans to list the Cambridge based technology company Arm on the New York stock exchange are under fire from Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner, as a campaign to “Back British Tech”. There are increasing demands from grandees in the City of London to have the company return to the London stock market.

The chip designer, founded in Cambridge, is one of the UK’s most successful tech companies – and to have its shares listed in the City. MP for South Cambridgeshire, Anthony Browne waded in on the issue, told CambridgeshireLive such a company is “strategically important”, and should be listed in the UK.

He said: “It is vital that this leading British technology company be floated in London. Ownership matters, particularly when it comes to such a strategically important company and major local employer, and as a nation we have historically been far too casual about such offerings.

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“As a national asset and one of the last great European semiconductor companies, I would expect any flotation to be compatible with not only the interest of investors, but also our national interest”.

The concern amongst politicians and investors are that are “too few” tech companies in the FTSE. The hope is that if Arm were listed on UK markets, it would boost the appeal of the index to other tech companies.

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Computer scientist Steve Furber, who helped design the original Arm microprocessor, said that although the current business is “intrinsically global” he “would certainly like Arm to be a British company”, in an interview with This is Money(TIS). The 68-year-old, a professor of computer engineering at Manchester University, said Arm’s ‘centre of gravity is still Cambridge’ despite also having design centres in the US and Bangalore, India.

Furber said he was against the original sale to Softbank because he believes the independence of the company was ‘key to its success’. James Urquhart, another founder, who still works in Cambridge with start-up technology businesses, told TIS: “I’d argue having a dual listing makes sense at a strategic level for the company and its partners”.

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Arm was founded in Cambridge in 1990 by 12 technologists. It spun out of then company Acorn, which had partnered with Apple and US computer firm VSLI. However, the firm was sold to Japanese conglomerate Softbank for £24bn in 2016 under the tenureiship of former PM Theresa May.

A few years later in 2020, Softbank almost sold Arm to US chipmaker Nvidia for £31bn. However, the deal collapsed and Softbankhas since sought for a stock market listing. Labour MP for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner told CambridgeshireLive overseas ownership will lead to “risk” around the “long-term interests” of the company and workforce.

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He said: “It is widely rumoured that SoftBank will prioritise getting the biggest return it can get by listing in New York. As I and many others predicted when ARM was originally sold, the danger was that the long-term interests of the company, the workforce, and of Cambridge would become a second order issue, and that is the risk now.

“A dual listing, in New York and London would be a better outcome, but much will depend on any conditions imposed. For such a strategically important company, the Government must be involved in this decision, as they clearly were when ARM was sold in the first place.”

Prior to its 2016 sale, a report by the firm depicted it as “Britain’s most successful tech company you’ve never heard of”.

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https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/tech-arm-listing-cambridge-uk-23239959

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