By Stephen Nellis
(Reuters) – Apple has signed a new deal with Arm for chip technology that will “extend beyond 2040,” according to Arm’s initial public offering documents filed on Tuesday.
Arm announced the price on Tuesday in what would be a $52 billion initial public offering, the largest deal in the U.S. this year. Arm’s owner SoftBank Group plans to offer 95.5 million American depositary shares of the UK-based company at $47 to $51 each, Arm said in a filing.
Arm owns the intellectual property behind the computing architecture that it licenses to Apple and many other mobile phones. Apple uses ARM technology in the process of developing its own custom chips for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
The two companies have a long history – Apple He was one of the first companies to establish the company in 1990, before the release of the Newton handheld computer, which used an ARM-based processor chip. Newton floated, but ARM dominated in cell phone chips because its low power consumption helped batteries last longer.
Apple was among several large tech companies that raised $735 million in Arm’s initial public offering on Tuesday. Reuters was the first to confirm that it was among the strategic investors who agreed to buy Apple shares last week.
The agreement announced on Tuesday was not mentioned in Arm’s previous IPO documents, which were made public on August 21, indicating that the deal was signed between September 5 and 5.
ARM declined to comment beyond filing, and Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Mahler)
