It was 2016 when Japanese tech investor and SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son flew into Turkey by private jet to make one of the biggest bets of his career: a $32 billion take-private deal for the British chip manufacturer Arm.
That trip would turn into one of SoftBank’s largest checks ever, and the deal would interlock Arm’s future with the success of the Japanese investment firm’s overall portfolio. It would also be the beginning of a saga of regulatory and corporate governance headaches as SoftBank tries to exit. Should the IPO go successfully, SoftBank could potentially double its investment. This IPO may not return what an Nvidia acquisition would have a few years back, but it’s exactly the kind of liquidity event that SoftBank needs at the moment as it recovers from several consecutive quarters of losses.
