SoftBank Group Corp. looks set to turn a tidy profit when it takes Arm Holdings Plc public sometime next week. While that’s nice, reality is the firm could’ve made more if it had just stashed its cash in an index fund and walked away.
(Bloomberg) — SoftBank Group Corp. looks set to turn a tidy profit when it takes Arm Holdings Plc public sometime next week. While that’s nice, reality is the firm could’ve made more if it had just stashed its cash in an index fund and walked away.
The math is as follows. Masayoshi Son’s firm paid $32 billion to take Arm private back in 2016. Seven years later, the chip designer is set for a valuation of as much as almost $55 billion, good for a 70% gain over that period.
Now compare that to what other equity benchmarks have done since that deal was announced. The S&P 500 Index has returned roughly twice as much, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which includes many of the companies that pay Arm royalties, has soared five-fold. And then there’s Nvidia Corp., one of Arm’s biggest customers, which has returned more than 3,600% in that same stretch.
The disparity highlights the challenges of late-stage tech investing, where companies often raise money at lofty valuations. Still, SoftBank and other tech investors have fared far worse in the space so one big success can cover the losses of other bets. A successful Arm IPO would provide a windfall for SoftBank founder Son, whose Vision Fund lost a record $30 billion last year.
A $55 billion valuation for Arm would place it in the middle of the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index’s components, between O’Reilly Automotive Inc. and NXP Semiconductors NV. The return for SoftBank would also lag the Nasdaq 100’s more than 250% gain from July 2016.
SoftBank’s Arm purchase came at a time when Nvidia’s enterprise value was roughly $25 billion. About four years later, Nvidia attempted to buy Arm for $40 billion in a cash and stock deal, with SoftBank expected to receive more than $21 billion in stock. While that deal fell apart, the return on the share component had SoftBank held on to its stake through 2023 would be worth more than $80 billion.
Arm’s sales growth has waned, with annual revenue declining from the period prior, though it’s been positioning itself to ride the artificial intelligence wave that Nvidia has created.
That could create opportunities for SoftBank to see greater returns over the coming years after listing on the Nasdaq later this month. New Street Research’s Pierre Ferragu expects Arm to be worth $82 billion three years from now.
Not everyone is sold on Arm’s value. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kunjan Sobhani and Oscar Hernandez Tejada said the lower implied valuation better reflects its “relatively slower growth rate and larger revenue exposure to the smartphone market in the near term.”
–With assistance from Matt Turner.
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