ARM to split off to china?

[Cyber-Mav]

lots of news going around about arms china branch being highjacked by t the ceo they sacked. looks like softbank knew about the issues arm will be facing and wanted to sell up. seeing how china will want to keep control of arm ip is there likely to be a split where china branch will become its own company and arm uk gets squat?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Firstly the UK government didn't give a damn about ARM being 100% owned by Japan,and secondly the problem is the ARM Chinese division is 51% owned by local investors,so they can choose what CEO they want,even if ARM doesn't want them. Softbank already has started to split up ARM,ie,some of their IoT IP is being held back. So a familar thing is happening,another UK company being bought up,and then being split into multiple parts,and as usual unlike most countries,we are fine allowing this all the time. Japan OTH won't allow such things WRT to semi-conductors,and is actually scrutinising foreign share ownership more and more. The US is the same too. They can enact nation security laws to prevent dealings happening.

But you have probably not realised,what Apple did to another well known UK company called Imagination Technologies,who are responsible for a lot of IP used in the graphics side of smartphone SOCs. Apple on purpose tried to bankrupt them by stopping all IP licensing,and hire away their engineers by opening up an office a few miles away in Cambridge. All to save on some licensing money. In the end they got bought up by a Chinese backed consortium in 2017. Apple went back to licensing Imagination Technologies stuff.

Basically,whereas the rest of the world is trying to push more indigenous semi-conductor development,we are just letting go of some of the most important companies we have over here.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Not only the UK govt not give a toss neither does most of the population who weren't even aware that the chips in their beloved mobiles were designed by a british based and once owned company. We were once the workshop of the world now we're a nation of fat lazy ignorant slobs.

 

[DarrenM343]

I was kind of proud of owning some ARM stock back in the day. It wasn't a lot but good to own shares in a great British tech company. While the sale to Softbank gave shareholders an immediate profit I was actually disappointed for obvious reasons.
Even though we have a government in place now to take us through leaving the EU they soon gave the nod to the sale of a huge British defence company too, a week or two after the election, a decision that they had delayed until after the election. If people want Britain to be Great Again (MBGA ? ) then maybe we can stop selling off our prized companies to the highest bidder.

Not really been following but was surprised to hear Softbank now rather keen to offload ARM but didn't read into the reasons.

Thankfully Astrazeneca resisted the approach from Pfizer some years ago. Some big investors wanted a quick buck and called out the CEO as talking rubbish over future predictions but they've actually pulled it off and done very well since, with share price growth & dividends far beyond what a sale would have returned.

Fingers crossed Nvidia now buy it, or at least the best parts. At least it's a company in a more relevant specialised industry, IMO.

Sell off our companies and we'll be slaves(strong word just for effect ) to the rest of the world/a "service" nation only. And that probably won't end well.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@DarrenM343 GKN?? Well,we will see how long it will take Melrose to start splitting parts off. Also Nvidia buying it would be a terrible choice as ARM would be at the whims of their government. For example if we or the EU got into a trade spat with them,ARM could be ordered to stop working with us. The same goes if we export products with ARM tech to countries we are OK with,but other countries are not,as foreign export permissions would need to be given.

In the end,it would only lead to more countries trying to get onto RISC-V. It is important to have indigenous capabilities otherwise we are relying on the good will of other countries.

 

[humbug]

This whole China thing....... the child like naivety of the people who are supposed to be running our most important companies and the country is gob smacking!

I've seen Politicians and CEO's whinge about the 'Five I's' not being nice to China and go on John Lennon bleary eye's style rants about how globalism is good and if we were just a little nicer to China they would realize the goodness in being virtues and become nice thinkers... i realized that's not how the world works by the time i was 11, ridiculous people.

China is a communist dictatorship with world take over ambitions, there is a reason they invest so heavily in our most important companies and it ain't good will.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It doesn't change the fact,whether its China,Japan or anyone,we are allowing control of our most important assets to leave the country,together with a lot of UK developed IP. In the end we will need to ask other countries permission to use our own IP. For decades this is happening,our innovations end up benefiting other countries more than ours!

 

[humbug]

It doesn't change the fact,whether its China,Japan or anyone,we are allowing control of our most important assets to leave the country,together with a lot if UK developed IP. In the end we will need to ask other countries permission to use our own IP. That means they will have a degree of sway over us.

That's nationalism, that's wrong think. The John Lennon zealots will cancel you if you carry on like that...

Aside from the rise of the hard left who look upon China's authoritarian states with envious eyes you also have the problem of greed taking China's money without questioning it, money that was transferd to them in the first place by farming out our manufacturing leaving large swathes of our own population without life security.

WE have made China more powerful than ourselves and this will turn around and bite us hard, through naivety and blind greed we have realized far too late that China is at war with us and has been for some time, Trump is an ******** but on China he could not be more right.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That's nationalism, that's wrong think. The John Lennon zealots will cancel you if you carry on like that...

Aside from the rise of the hard left who look upon China's authoritarian states with envious eyes you also have the problem of greed taking China's money without questioning it, money that was transferd to them in the first place by farming out our manufacturing leaving large swathes of our own population without life security.

WE have made China more powerful than ourselves and this will turn around and bite us hard, through naivety and blind greed we have realized far too late that China is at war with us and has been for some time, Trump is an ******** but on China he could not be more right.

TBF,most of the people pushing the sale of stuff seem to hard capitalists,who put short term profit above everything else. If anything the left in the UK wanted more state nationalisation of things,which didn't play right with many people due to the costs involved. Anyway,the primary blame is with greedy people,who are more worried about playing the stock market,which is the only important thing. So they reduce R and D,push up prices,make things less repairable and push more jobs abroad.

They went to China to avoid labour and environmental laws,as other countries improved theirs,and China knew very well,so were wiling to play this game,to pull themselves upwards out of their rut.China is a symptom.The problem is that it also happened with Japan,South Korea,Taiwan....etc. So using those countries as examples,what did they think a large single state country would do....exactly the same. In all those countries even their "private companies" have very complex ownership structures,and very close ties to their governments. Next it will be India,or Brazil,or someone else. I don't have a problem with sharing out the wealth and making less people poor either,but at the same time there is a limit to anything,especially people over here need jobs too.

In 1980s you should have seen the rage at Japan,to the extent Japanese products were being smashed by politicians in the US. That was because Japan,finally decided to cut out the middle men,and make better products. So many competing companies in the west,didn't innovate,and just expected countries like Japan to be cheap labour. No country will do that forever. Countries are selfish. We need to invest more in our country.

Yet unlike the UK countries such as Japan,and the US already have laws in place to control who can purchase important companies. The rest of the world has those controls in place,it seems over here,its quick buck mentality and have too many who think the market is "free". It isn't,so other countries take advantage of it. Look at how many of our publically owned utilities get sold off,underpriced,and in the end we still need taxpayer's money to prop them up!

 

[DarrenM343]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH Cobham

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@DarrenM343 Cobham too?? GKN got taken over by "investment specialists" in a hostile takeover.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

So if arm is sold what if the uk arm keep a copy of all the data and research done, take chinas money and when fight breaks out carry on development by recreating arm again in the uk?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Reading the Reuters and Bloomberg report on it,the whole affair seems bewildering:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-a...arent-interfered-with-contracts-idUKKCN24T1LQ
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...china-venture-ex-ceo-of-blocking-its-business
https://www.techpowerup.com/270474/arm-china-goes-rogue-ex-ceo-blocking-the-business

It was ARM UK,and the main investor in the ARM China joint venture who wanted the CEO fired. The CEO now is blocking their business in China,but ARM China is accusing ARM UK and their Chinese investor of asking customers to drop contracts.

This is all rather bizarre.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Hmm can china be trusted with intellectual property? From what i read most of it leaks to black markets hence you get all the fakes turning up.
Someone in china needs to get a cpu fab up and running. Be a big fortune in selling counterfeit cpus i bet.

 

[humbug]

TBF,most of the people pushing the sale of stuff seem to hard capitalists,who put short term profit above everything else. If anything the left in the UK wanted more state nationalisation of things,which didn't play right with many people due to the costs involved. Anyway,the primary blame is with greedy people,who are more worried about playing the stock market,which is the only important thing. So they reduce R and D,push up prices,make things less repairable and push more jobs abroad.

They went to China to avoid labour and environmental laws,and China knew very well,so were wiling to play this game,to pull themselves upwards out of their rut.China is a symptom.The problem is that it also happened with Japan,South Korea,Taiwan....etc. So using those countries as examples,what did they think a large single state country would do....exactly the same. In all those countries even their "private companies" have very complex ownership structures,and very close ties to their governments. Next it will be India,or Brazil,or someone else. I don't have a problem with sharing out the wealth and making less people poor either,but at the same time there is a limit to anything,especially people over here need jobs too.

In 1980s you should have seen the rage at Japan,to the extent Japanese products were being smashed by politicians in the US. That was because Japan,finally decided to cut out the middle men,and make better products. So many competing companies in the west,didn't innovate,and just expected countries like Japan to be cheap labour. No country will do that forever. Countries are selfish. Yet unlike the UK countries such as Japan,and the US already have laws in place to control who can purchase important companies. The rest of the world has those controls in place,it seems over here,its quick buck mentality and have too many who think the market is "free". It isn't,so other countries take advantage of it. Look at how many of our publically owned utilities get sold off,underpriced,and in the end we still need taxpayer's money to prop them up!

I don't disagree with any of that.

I'm a liberal and state control of 'anything' doesn't sit right with me, i think Bojo with his new-found fondness for using his power leavers to try and control what people eat because he can't keep his hands out of the biscuit tin is state nannying and i think he should mind his own business, the choices i make are not for him to meddle with, i'm not a child and he's not my mother.

Having said all of that i do think as a nation we should look after ourselves first and foremost, we give billions in aid to China while some of our own struggle having to make choices of shall i eat today or heat? stop that nonsense and divert those funds to our own who need it and let the lefties cry "oh poverty is relative" well its our money so if you feel that strongly about it stick your hand in your own pocket instead of using other peoples money to make yourself feel virtuous. China's poverty is China's problem, we have our own problems.

I am beginning to think that greedy people who enrich themselves at the expense of others, our nations wealth and our national security do need to be kicked to the kirb, no matter who they are, these people clearly exist and perhaps that is where a liberal society can draw the line. If its not already too late. The first thing we should do is not bailout the stupid and the greedy for their mistakes, let Darwinism take its course. More intelligent people will take their place.

 

[G_Wizz]

Sadly it's a long list of British technology that has been sold off, it's as if the Government wants to sell the whole country and leave the British people with nothing. We built the worlds first full scale Nuclear Power Station in 1956 and now we can't even build one at all.

 

[Doobedoo]

Problem is we are like a little guy mouthing off to a much bigger, tougher guy. The only thing stopping this bigger, tougher guy from giving us a good hiding is because we have big tough mates. At some point the big, tough guy will catch up with the small mouthy kid when he all alone and the little mouthy kid will end up having to give up all his lunch money and won’t be able to do a thing about it.

 

[pc-guy]

That's nationalism, that's wrong think. The John Lennon zealots will cancel you if you carry on like that...

Aside from the rise of the hard left who look upon China's authoritarian states with envious eyes you also have the problem of greed taking China's money without questioning it, money that was transferd to them in the first place by farming out our manufacturing leaving large swathes of our own population without life security.

WE have made China more powerful than ourselves and this will turn around and bite us hard, through naivety and blind greed we have realized far too late that China is at war with us and has been for some time, Trump is an ******** but on China he could not be more right.

That’s a very simplistic and somewhat biased view of the world trade and capitalist market. Also it is quite wrong.

The market derived China to be a dominant player due to its market size, its natural resources, its facilities and its infrastructures, its labour rate, its stable political system, its willingness to invest in its own infrastructure to encourage investment, its lack of regulations and also its willingness to be open to do business.

Back in 1980s and 1990s when Deng Xiao Ping first opened China for outside investment it was singularly the best place to do business because of all the above factors. It made itself the rich “east” where businesses, entrepreneurs can make a fortune. Similar parallels you will see in post war Japan, current general of Southeast Asia countries. Many of these countries are copying china’s model of setting up special economical area in their big industrial cities and ports just like China did in early 80s.

currently we just happen to rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing which doesn’t appear to be an ally of the west. Don’t be fooled in thinking the west is clean in its business practices. Bribes and underhand dealings are rift in ALL business negotiations

 

[G_Wizz]

Problem is we are like a little guy mouthing off to a much bigger, tougher guy. The only thing stopping this bigger, tougher guy from giving us a good hiding is because we have big tough mates. At some point the big, tough guy will catch up with the small mouthy kid when he all alone and the little mouthy kid will end up having to give up all his lunch money and won’t be able to do a thing about it.

Although essentially true, the reason why that came about is the question. The used to be big guys (UK, France, Germany, Italy and USA) decided to allow alltheir manufacturing businesses to relocate to China for short term greed, this gave China an enormous boost that would have taken a 100 years or more to achieve on it's own merits. Now we are almost totally reliant on China for things that we used to produce ourselves but have lost the ability to produce any more. As things are now China is set to (literally) own the whole world within the next 30 years, all down to our own short term greed. You can't really fault them for taking advantage of the situation.

 

[Scougar]

It isn't just companies that they are buying btw, it is literally countries. They are giving enormous loans to countries to build infrastructure etc, knowing full well that they are unlikely to be able to pay it back. Once that happens, they then seek to effectively get control of the country assets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy

While this is somewhat off-topic, it is the same idea. Getting a foothold for China.

China does not care about IP, it only care's about control, power and money. That's it. Look at the new CPU's coming out of China, they will be a real threat, and if you think they won't be using those CPU's/System's for data gathering and other malicious activities you are kidding yourself.