The Japanese telecom giant is selling a big chunk to a investment fund that was created by Softbank’s CEO and Saudi Arabian investors, among others.
When SoftBank , the Japanese telecommunications giant, bought the British semiconductor designer ARM Holdings last year for $32 billion, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder, said the deal would bring benefits like jobs and investment to Britain.
Now, just six months later, SoftBank is in final-stage talks to sell a 25 percent stake in ARM, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The roughly $8 billion sale will be to a new $100 billion investment fund that Mr. Son has created with Saudi Arabia and other investors, raising questions about how politicians in Britain, the United States and elsewhere will respond to such investments in their national technology industries. Chips made by ARM power iPhones and millions of other mobile devices worldwide.
Mr. Son met with President Trump before his inauguration in January about using the $100 billion fund to buy stakes in American tech companies, with the aim of creating thousands of new jobs.
While British lawmakers remain sanguine about the proposed sale of ARM to Mr.
