Co-founder of Arm attacks sale to Nvidia as a 'disaster'

[LONDON] The US$40 billion sale of British chip designer Arm to Nvidia Corp from Japan's SoftBank is a disaster that will destroy its business model, Arm's co-founder said on Monday.

"It's a disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe," Hermann Hauser told Reuters in an interview. "It's the last European technology company with global relevance and it's being sold to the Americans."

The deal announced overnight would destroy Arm's business model as "the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry", Mr Hauser said. Nvidia competes with Arm's clients.

Mr Hauser called on the UK government to put three conditions on the deal: a guarantee of jobs in Britain; a promise to preserve Arm's open business model; and an exception to US security reviews on its client relationships.

If these could not be met, "the British government should help orchestrate an initial public offering of Arm on the London Stock Exchange and make it a British company", Mr Hauser said, urging the UK to back a market float as a cornerstone investor.

REUTERS