Japan’s SoftBank Group has agreed to purchase ARM for £24.3 billion ($32 billion). The move underlines SoftBank’s desire to expand in the IoT.
SoftBank plans to “at least double” the number of ARM employees in the UK over the next five years. ARM currently has about 1,600 employees in the country.
Philip Hammond, the UK government’s new finance minister, has said that the deal shows that the UK has “lost none of its allure to international investors” in the wake of the Brexit vote (the weak pound would have contributed, but SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said that ARM’s share price has actually risen since the 23rd June, offsetting any currency impact – TA).
SoftBank aims to close the deal by the end of September.
