Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 84 total)
  • Arm Holdings
  • kimbers
    Full Member

    Sold!

    wait a minute 7 days ago ….

    Theresa said…

    “A proper industrial strategy wouldn’t automatically stop the sale of British firms to foreign ones, but it should be capable of stepping in to defend a sector that is as important as pharmaceuticals is to Britain.”

    So does ARM count as important to Britain ?

    according to Hammomd, the buy out

    will turn this great British company into a global phenomenon

    Has no one told him that ARM chips are already used in 95% of all smartphones? 🙄
    Does he really believe this, is it just desperate post Bexit spin?

    I know that there has been a promise to increase staff and investment, but I wonder what the former employees of Corus/Tata steel might say about it all

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Last of the two Cambridge Titans, CSR was bought by Samsung recently…..

    Does he really believe this, is it just desperate post Bexit spin?

    Pretty much, desperate for any “good” news at the moment, whether it be in our long term interests or not.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    🙁

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    allthegear
    Free Member

    Bizarre decision to sell out and even more bizarre for UK Gov to let it happen.

    Rachel

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Bizarre decision to sell out

    Not really, all their share options will exercise with a buy out and at a 44% premium the whole board are made for life several times over.

    One of our board members did own 7% of ARM at one point..

    and even more bizarre for UK Gov to let it happen.

    Agreed, but then I’d expect nothing less from the Tories. If there is an opportunity to sell something to someone foreign, they’re falling over themselves to flog it…..

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    A deal made possible by the weakened pound. Expect to see more UK companies being snapped up by foreign investors in the coming months.

    A shame that such a forward looking, innovative UK firm is going to overseas owners…

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Apparently this is what they meant by “Taking back control” 🙂

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    I agree with the sentiment that it is a shame, but on what basis could the government of any political persuasion intervene – it wouldn’t even be legal. The only way would be for the government to effectively buy up a controlling stake and effectively nationalise it…then it would be **** for sure.

    These things are usually done for a reason. I guess something like despite the fact they’d cornered one niche segment of a very huge multi-segmented global market, it was effectively the end of the line for ARM unless it was willing to invest significantly to diversify into areas where it has nothing to offer over the competition. So if you stand still you wither and die and investing so much to diversify with no real expertise in any other area is a hugely risky prospect. So that leaves you with limited options. They made processors, but processors on their own are useless unless they’re part of bigger and more complex products.

    They are a widget manufacturer, and a manufacturer of only one specific type of widget where the price is getting every more squeezed as the cost of products reduces. So they’re in a risky position with nothing else in their product portfolio therefore no future. It is only a matter of time until another widget manufacturer comes up with a better widget then they’re heading down the tubes.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    They made processors,
    They are a widget manufacturer

    No, they don’t. They design processors and licensed the design. Which then got put into all sorts of different chips and products. I’d not be surprised if I (and most other households) had at least a dozen things around the house that had an ARM core embedded somewhere inside them. Hugely diverse. And a real shame to see it sold.

    Kamakazie
    Full Member

    The market for ARM licencees continues to grow and as the IoT becomes a reality, we will see ARM based designs in more and more items.
    Pretty much everything that is powered in some way will contain one of ARM licencees or its competitors chips in the near future.

    With Intel seemingly stepping back from competing in the space after throwing money at it, things continue to look up.

    It is not just low power CPUs either, they also licence designs for GPUs and a number of other chips.

    richard
    Full Member

    @footflaps
    CSR were bought by Qualcomm this year, not Samsung…
    Samsung did buy a part of CSR’s business nearly 4 years ago.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    State control Comrades 😯

    Its a public company. Softbank paid 40% more than the last public closing price.

    A great success for our innovation and technology capabilities and co-operation between business and our world class and world leading University in Cambridge

    footflaps
    Full Member

    @footflaps
    CSR were bought by Qualcomm this year, not Samsung…
    Samsung did buy a part of CSR’s business nearly 4 years ago.

    Yep. Only work next door as well….

    bluerob
    Full Member

    Will HMRC lose significantly more in corporation tax if licensing revenues are reported through Japan than would be gained from a doubling of income tax through increasing the UK workforce? I expect we’ll see a bump in capital gains tax receipts as ARM employees sell vested shares.

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    State control Comrades

    Its a public company. Softbank paid 40% more than the last public closing price.

    A great success for our innovation and technology capabilities and co-operation between business and our world class and world leading University in Cambridge

    Would the Americans ever let China buy Intel?

    The answer to that is that no they wouldn’t.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    I expect we’ll see a bump in capital gains tax receipts as ARM employees sell vested shares.

    The Porsche and Bentley dealerships in Cambridge will be licking their lips in anticipation…..

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Would the Americans ever let China buy Intel?

    The answer to that is that no they wouldn’t.

    They also won’t let US Telcos buy Chinese Telecoms kit, thus protecting US Telecoms vendors. Whereas we happily let BT buy Huawei kit, which pretty much killed off Marconi as a result.

    We also are in the odd position of having one our key hacking threat nations design and build most of our core internet infrastructure….

    Sir Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, has previously said business secrets were being stolen on an ‘industrial scale’ with some firms being penetrated by foreign hackers for years at a time. Defence giant BAE Systems, which makes the Typhoon fighter jet, has been facing more than 300 cyber attacks a year, mainly from China.

    Martin Sutherland, BAE’s Applied Intelligence boss, said the scheme could provide ‘a much richer set of threat information’.

    BT is closely connected to the controversial Chinese firm Huawei, which for ten years has supplied much of BT’s infrastructure. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which provides political oversight of GCHQ, has severely criticised BT’s deal with Huawei, saying it was ‘shocked’ that Ministers had not been informed until a year after the deal was signed.

    MI5 warned ‘it would be very difficult to detect or prevent’ the Chinese state using Huawei equipment to covertly intercept communications, while GCHQ said ‘the risk of unauthorised access cannot be entirely eliminated’.

    In the US, a congressional report described Huawei as ‘a threat to core national security interests’. Tory MP Mark Field, who serves on the Intelligence and Security Committee, said: ‘This is something we should definitely be thinking about. We need to know on what basis this scheme will work and how are the firms going to be presented with this information.’

    A spokesman for GCHQ said: ‘We have a wealth of experience of securing the most complex and sensitive information and systems in the UK. It is exactly this expertise that will ensure any data exchanged is done so in a secure manner that doesn’t risk national security.

    ‘We are working with all the companies involved to ensure that the threat information is exchanged, stored and utilised in a secure manner, safe from any adversaries.

    http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2664496/GCHQs-favourite-firms-secret-hacking-alerts-National-security-fears-raised-BTs-links-Chinese-company.html

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    Footflaps, remember what I was saying about the UK’s complete and utter lack of regard for scientists and engineers in the other thread? That we are a nation of nation of upper class business managers, lawyers and bankers – there is the proof right there in your article.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Footflaps, remember what I was saying about the UK’s complete and utter lack of regard for scientists and engineers in the other thread? That we are a nation of nation of upper class business managers, lawyers and bankers – there is the proof right there in your article.

    Just in my time in the UK technology industry (some 20 years) the amount of out-sourcing and off-shoring I’ve seen is staggering. So many great engineers having had to move into management (often without much success) in order to progress their career or simply made redundant. The drain of knowledge and skills that often took companies decades to build up, discarded as if there is no value to it. Deeply saddening.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    mr blobby – they’re not really that diverse though are they? Like you say they design processors which are used in lots of different applications. But they just design processors…that’s it. One widget used many times in many different applications. Like cars – we have small hatchbacks, big hatchbacks, estates, SUV’s etc. but they’re all essentially the same thing just tweaked. So where do ARM go from here? What’s their 10 year plan to continue to grow, protect current market share and increase it? And what happens when the Chinese come up with a copied version which they pedal for half the price? Where would the value of ARM go from there. The point I’m making is that they are very good at one thing – which makes them a very risky prospect over the future – others will catch up, it is inevitable. Unless they can diversify and utilise their talents and skills to develop other new products then the future is looking bleak for them. Just like Intel. The only difference between Intel and ARM is that the technology that ARM had coincidentally happened to be more applicable to mobile devices. If the smartphone and tablet phenomenon had not taken off the way it did and everyone voted for laptops, then Intel would have won out instead of ARM.

    I agree on the sentiment of it – it’s a great shame. But at the end of the day they’re being bought out for their expertise and knowledge. Clearly the board know that they have nowhere to go from here and the value of the company is only going one way.

    Del
    Full Member

    Whereas we happily let BT buy Huawei kit, which pretty much killed off Marconi as a result.

    marconi’s goose was cooked when they took the decision to pile in to a market that became rapidly over saturated with kit from competing vendors, and that cast list is long.

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    I’m sorry wobilscott, but I don’t see how china could develop vastly cheaper chips, when ARM designs are manufactured in China anyway. The cost difference is going to be the pay of several hundred engineers – thats it.

    Isn’t the 10 year plan for ARM to go into the “internet of things”?

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    So where do ARM go from here?

    The beauty of their model is that they don’t really need to do that much to grow the market. New segment appears (e.g. pretty much anything you want to make “smarter”) that needs some sort of embedded CPU, it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll use one of the many existing chips built around an ARM core, or if they need something new developed that it’ll licence the ARM core as a starting point.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    I’m sorry wobilscott, but I don’t see how china could develop vastly cheaper chips, when ARM designs are manufactured in China anyway.

    Arm don’t manufacture anything, they license chip designs (basically a data file) which get incorporated in other people’s chips and made all over the place.

    righog
    Free Member

    So hypothetically, because of their business model if 200 or so Design Engineers, technicians and Scientists….Geniuses Left ARM tomorrow and set up a rival company, they could at least take some of the Market off the newly acquired ARM ?

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Given time (decades) I suppose, but the familiarity and ubiquity of the ARM core gives it a very strong position in the market. Plenty of tools available for it. Engineers know how to build on it. Loads of manufacturers already using it.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Plus all the IPR for Risc architectures is owned by ARM…

    tails
    Free Member

    Doubt it’ll move from Cambridge either the clever people that work in these areas seem to stay in the area. They might travel half way around the world to study at Cambridge but they don’t then take their brains back home and start companies there. I do think it’s s shame that we are getting to a point where every industry will have a handful of major owners. Facebook have the monopoly on social media, Walmart on food, etc etc. It makes the world a very very bland place.

    Myself I prefererred the city pre silicon fen, but that’s partly as I feel I’ve been priced out of my home. As above Bentley will be very busy lol!

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    ARM won’t move Imo, certainly not in medium term (5-10 years). What will happen is more Japanese engineers will come here.

    We live in an open society, we can’t possibly stop people buying assets they wish to. To block sales of such companies would be illegal anyway as far as I am aware, certainly under UK and EU law. There is no real argument its against national interest or a security or monopoly type issue

    thecaptain
    Free Member

    I thought we didn’t want any more of those foreigners coming over here. Especially experts, the British public doesn’t like experts 🙂

    Japanese don’t work abroad that much, it’s a fairly simple asset buy-up from a cash-rich and ideas-poor company IMO. Looks like it’s going to make me a fair bit of money (by luck/judgement I have shares) but I don’t think it’s really a good thing for the country overall. We’ll have to wait and see if the “investment” really turns up…promises sometimes turn out to be hollow…

    oldmanmtb
    Free Member

    Never see the Germans flogging stuff off…. just saying

    oldmanmtb
    Free Member

    We are just one big ebay listing it appears

    oldmanmtb
    Free Member

    As any Farmer will tell you no one stays rich by selling assets….

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Bizarre decision to sell out

    Why Rach? Seems like Softbank are paying a crazy price (60x earnings) at a time when core market is becoming saturated

    and even more bizarre for UK Gov to let it happen.

    What’s it got to do with them?

    As above, weaker pound is likely to accelerate this trend

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    Evidence that their core market is becoming saturated THM?

    ARM won’t move Imo, certainly not in medium term (5-10 years). What will happen is more Japanese engineers will come here.

    As opposed to nurturing talent from Oxbridge? I don’t see why you are so keen to “take back control” from the EU – but think nothing of British industry being at the mercy of acquisitions.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    when core market is becoming saturated

    Mobile phones yes, IoT who knows, could be massive, could be a damp squib…

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    The Germans never flog off stuff because their companies are large diverse companies with more than one product line and interests in many industries. Look at Siemens for example. They do the buying, not the selling. However the British company I work for has, in the last 15 years, bought largeish foreign companies. But they were all companies that were not very diversified and we caught them on at the top of an R&D spend cycle where a company is most exposed, in order to bolster and grow our own product line. And despite that we’re still a relatively small fish in a vast ocean and our future is never certain.

    My comment about China is nothing to do with Manufacturing. It’s to do with IP. China are currently raiding every companies IT systems and stealing IP and making copies of products and the global legal system seems completely and utterly useless in dealing with the situation. It is industrial espionage on a national scale. So what if ARM’s IP is stolen by China and they flood the market with cheaper copies of ARM technology. ARM can try to take the nation of China to court, but they won’t win, or China will stretch it out until ARM is bled dry and cannot continue to challenge and it would be too late anyway, and then ARM’s one and only product line is hugely de-valued and then what for the future of ARM and it’s shareholders? They are massively exposed. The shareholders knew it, so have sold up while the companies value is still riding high. However now it is part of a larger and more diverse company ARM will have all the backing it needs, new routes to market and alot more R&D resources at it’s disposal and will probably thrive much longer into the future than it would being a highly innovative, plucky little specialist company punching above its weight.

    I agree that it is a great shame and I just hope that the brains stay in the UK and go on to create something else, but the UK has never been very good at building large diverse companies – it’s the British disease – we talk ourselves down and are afraid of success – we seem to get so far then just give up. We have nothing even on a fraction of the scale of a GE or a Siemens. ARM was an innovative company – the problem with innovation is that it is expensive and despite all the ARM chips sold a good chunk of ARM’s expenditure would have been R&D and the problem with that is that if your next product isn’t as successful as you hoped then your company is all of a sudden in trouble. It’s a risky business even without the Chinese stealing your crown jewels. Big diverse companies balance their high spend R&D spend by their cheaper commoditised (not sure that’s a real word) products – e.g. GE. The saying about GE is that they put one cent on the price of a light bulb and they fund a new jet engine.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Their selling?

    15% CAGR in sales unsustainable….look at their customers?

    Other than indirect effect on £ what does this have to do with Brexit?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 84 total)

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