Arm China Chairman and CEO Allen Wu recently took part in an interview with JW Insights, with the Q&A session published this weekend. Wu was quizzed on just two topics; the impact of the Nvidia buyout failure and if what happened provides any important lessons for Chinese companies.
Wu elaborated and provided further insight into mergers, collaboration, and regulations. However, Wu, widely regarded as a rogue CEO who simply refuses to be fired, seemed oblivious to being one of the biggest problems any Arm IPO filing might face.
In the interview, Wu started by stating the importance of Arm to the whole IT industry chain. Many industry observers have said this before, but it is important for Arm to hold a neutral position, said Wu, claiming that the failure of Nvidia's buyout of Arm was a better outcome for almost everyone except Nvidia.
Next, Wu touched on topics including industry and business regulations getting ever tighter, and therefore making large chip company mergers and acquisitions (M&A) more difficult.
Ramping up the lack of self-awareness levels even higher, Wu went on to suggest that tech companies could look at the Arm China spinoff as a success story. Thus, he advised that tech companies should explore technical and patent licensing and joint ventures (like Arm China) to grow their business rather than following an M&A path.
Wu signed off his interview by wishing for continued industry cooperation "to advance the development of the semiconductor industry and improve human life through technology sharing."
Arm's IPO Faces a Roadblock
Nvidia's failed acquisition of Arm has been a very costly and public failure for the green team. As a result, SoftBank will now seek to monetize its Arm investment by selling off the UK-based chip designer via a stock market IPO.
However, Allen Wu's legal wrangling with Arm, and estimates that roughly 20% of Arm's finances can't be audited due to the opaque way Wu runs the China Division, means that an IPO could be impossible to approve with regulators. In a previous report this month, we quoted Arm's CFO hinting that the company is exploring a path to "resolve some things" regarding Arm China, but (perhaps wisely) didn't reveal any specific plans.