SoftBank Lines Up Apple, Nvidia as Strategic Arm IPO Backers

(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp. has lined up some of Arm Ltd.’s biggest customers as strategic investors for the chip company’s initial public offering, including Apple Inc., Nvidia Corp., Intel Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., according to people familiar with the situation.

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The investors also include Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Cadence Design Systems Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Synopsys Inc., among others, said the people, who asked not to identified because the details haven’t been announced. SoftBank has been in discussions with Arm customers and partners for months, but the plans are just being finalized now. Still, the specifics could change as the company gets closer to the IPO, which is expected to have its investor roadshow underway by next week.

The investors will put in amounts ranging from $25 million to $100 million, according to the people.

The show of support from some of the tech industry’s biggest names will help bolster the offering, which is expected to raise $5 billion to $7 billion. SoftBank, which acquired Arm in 2016, was previously aiming to value the chip business at $60 billion to $70 billion.

Softbank will seek $47 to $51 per share in the IPO, the people said. That share-price range was reported earlier by Reuters.

Representatives from AMD, Arm, Google, Nvidia and Synopsys declined to comment. Apple, Cadence, Intel and Samsung didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

SoftBank is capitalizing on investor interest in the chip industry, which has benefited from spending on artificial intelligence equipment. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index has rallied this year, far outpacing the S&P 500 Index and other major indexes.