Arm’s public listing is set to break records

On August 21st Arm, a chipmaker whose designs power most of the world’s smartphones, filed for an initial public offering (ipo) that could turn out to be the largest of the year. The route taken by the British firm, which is owned by SoftBank Group, a Japanese technology conglomerate, has not been straightforward. In 2016 SoftBank acquired Arm, then listed on the London Stock Exchange, for $31bn. Four years later a proposed $40bn sale to Nvidia, another chipmaker, was squashed by competition authorities. Now a blockbuster listing is in prospect that would also signal a revival of an ipo market that has been largely dormant since 2022 .