Arm still hasnt gotten rid of the rebellious Chinese branch
Hardware

Arm still hasn’t gotten rid of the rebellious Chinese branch: Chinese authorities are defying bureaucracy

Since the summer of 2020, the British holding company Arm has been trying to remove the rebellious director Allen Wu from the management of the joint venture Arm China, a year ago the parent company decided to transfer its 47.33 percent stake in Arm China to a subsidiary of the Japanese group SoftBank, which retains ownership of the UK arm. As it turns out, the Chinese authorities are in no hurry to register this deal and are trying to maintain ties with the British developer.

    Image source: Arm

Image source: Arm

The details of this almost detective story are shared by the Financial Times. As early as June last year, according to Arm officials, the 47.33% stake in Arm China was transferred to Acetone Limited, a subsidiary of SoftBank. However, in the Chinese state registry, they are still owned by Arm. I must say that such transactions are usually registered by the Chinese authorities within five or ten days, so in this case the bureaucratic machinery is bogged down for a special reason.

One of the Chinese officials confessed financial timesWhat “The US-China chip war continues, and Arm is an indispensable ally for the local semiconductor industry in such a situation.”. SoftBank appears to be a less valuable partner for the Chinese side in this deal since it doesn’t directly control Arm’s development. Access to ARM architectures is important for the development of the entire Chinese semiconductor industry. Arm and SoftBank insist the company’s restructuring is long overdue. This deal was necessary to prepare the UK arm for an IPO, which is due later this year. Whether the harassment by Chinese officials is making preparations for the British holding company’s IPO difficult is hard to say for sure.

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Dylan Harris

Dylan Harris is fascinated by tests and reviews of computer hardware.

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