Arm Holdings Plc., a British chip designer owned by Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp., debuted on the U.S. Nasdaq stock exchange Thursday, becoming the largest U.S. initial public offering this year with a market capitalization of over $65 billion.
The shares of the chip giant, which commands an overwhelming share of the world's smartphone processor market, ended the first day of trade at $63.59, surging some 25 percent from its IPO price of $51.
The IPO comes after Arm's Japanese parent company posted massive losses in the past two years due to investment missteps. SoftBank retains about a 90 percent ownership stake in Arm.
SoftBank acquired the British chip designer in 2016 for about 24 billion pounds ($30 billion), taking the company private in a bid to pursue business opportunities related to internet of things product network technologies.
In 2020, with Softbank struggling amid the challenging business environment caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the company said it would sell its entire stake in Arm to U.S. semiconductor maker Nvidia Corp., but the deal was called off in 2022 due to regulatory hurdles, prompting SoftBank to pursue Arm's listing.
