British chip designer Arm set for £40bn Wall St debut

By Jessica Clark

Updated: 17:01 EDT, 13 September 2023

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Arm hunts out investors for mega New York float

• Technology giant plans to ask investors to pay $47 (£37) to $51 per share 
• Some big names already signed up as IPO investors in Arm include Apple
• Company was revealed to be targeting a valuation range of $50-55bn in its IPO

By Emily Hawkins

Updated: 16:52 EDT, 3 September 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

Arm has raised alarm bells about China as it gears up for the biggest stock market listing in the US for nearly two years.

The Cambridge-based chip designer – which is owned by Japanese investor SoftBank – revealed it was ‘particularly susceptible to economic and political risks’ in China, where it rakes in nearly a quarter of its revenues.

In a 330-page document outlining plans for a £50billion initial public offering in New York next month, Arm spent more than 3,500 words detailing how the growing tensions between the Biden administration and Beijing were already hampering its performance.

The US recently limited China’s access to new technology and investment through a series of sanctions – fanning the flames of a trade war.

Arm said sales made by divisions including Arm China slumped by £21million over the three months to June.

The figure included around £9million which it blamed on ‘trade protection and national security policies’ from the US.

And the company warned this situation would only get worse as its relationship with its independent Chinese business – which is majority owned by local investors rather than SoftBank – remains shaky.

‘We depend on our commercial relationship with Arm China to access the People’s Republic of China [PRC] market,’ the filing said.

‘If that commercial relationship no longer existed or deteriorates, our ability to compete in the PRC market could be materially and adversely affected’.

The warning came as Arm confirmed it was on track to be the most valuable company to complete an IPO since November 2021, when electric-car maker Rivian hit Wall Street.

And some analysts have said it is precisely because of the uncertain US-Sino backdrop that SoftBank opted for the Nasdaq rather than London to make Arm’s stock-market comeback.

‘New York is the safety-blanket path for listings especially big tech names like Arm,’ said Dan Ives, tech analyst at investment bank Wedbush. ‘Given the geopolitical headwinds and regulatory issues in China, all flight paths for IPOs now lead to New York.’

SoftBank took Arm private for £24billion in 2016, removing it from the London Stock Exchange.

Although it had hoped to sell Arm to US chip firm Nvidia in 2020, the £31billion deal collapsed due to regulatory blocks.

The UK then undertook an intense lobbying effort to convince SoftBank to have a dual listing in London and New York.

SoftBank snubbed these efforts, claiming the US was the ‘best path forward’ for Arm.

Yet the move has raised serious questions for the City and its ability to attract bumper IPOs. Despite health company Haleon’s £30billion float last summer, FTSE valuations have suffered in recent years.

Some blame a ‘Brexit discount’, which has spooked international investors, and others slam London as a ‘Jurassic Park’ index due to its lack of stocks in new industries such as fintech and artificial intelligence.

The world’s largest building materials company CRH has warned it is going to move its primary stock market listing to New York, and gambling giant Flutter is gearing up to list there in the autumn.

According to data compiled by media group Bloomberg, fewer than £790million has been raised on the London stock market this year, the worst performance since 2009.

Meanwhile, the United States largely remains a safe bet for many companies who are looking for faster processes and higher valuations.

To emphasise the latter, Apple – which is America’s most valuable company – is worth nearly £1bn more than all the firms on the FTSE 100 combined.

‘Price seems to be the driving factor for SoftBank,’ explained Russ Mould, analyst at AJ Bell, who said that the Japanese conglomerate’s boss Masayoshi Son would also be looking to prove himself with this float.

He said: ‘SoftBank will be looking to show it can still make successful investments after a string of embarrassing duds, most notably [co-working space firm] WeWork and [crypto trading platform] FTX. Son will be out to prove that SoftBank’s track record is a good one.’

Arm will also be in good company across the Atlantic – the US is home to chip giants such as Nvidia and Intel.

By contrast, London has been on a mission to loosen its IPO rules to boost deal making, which includes giving founders greater control and removing financial reporting barriers.

Victoria Scholar, analyst at Interactive Investor, said: ‘While proposed changed to listing rules in London could help to bolster its appeal as a go-to destination for global IPOs, there’s still work to be done on its international perception.

‘London needs to work on fostering exciting fresh companies in fintech, renewable energy and artificial intelligence and prove that it’s just as important a global financial hub post Brexit as it was before.’

It is still possible, however, that SoftBank could eventually decide to list Arm in London as a secondary listing on top of its New York one.

House Democratic campaign arm raises $41m in last quarter with mass shootings helping propel them ahead of GOP fundraisers in June – as Raphael Warnock nearly triples Herschel Walker with his own $17m haul

• The DCCC raised $40.7 million the second quarter of FY2022 
• Party also raised the RNCC by just $500,000 in June despite claims there will be a Democratic bloodbath in November’s midterm
• The fundraising haul came after a series of mass shootings and the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade last month 
• Georgia is a good example of Democrats out raising Republicans in the midterms
• Democrat incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock raised $17.2M from April-June compared to his Republican rival Herschel Walker, who brought in $6.2M

By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:13 EDT, 13 July 2022 | Updated: 20:01 EDT, 13 July 2022

Sofia Vergara dazzled in a sparkly ensemble when she arrived at Taylor Swift‘s barnstorming Los Angeles concert Friday.

Taylor was on night two of her sold-out six-show engagement at the massive SoFi Stadium, which seats over 70,000.

Although she herself is world-famous for her turn on Modern Family, Sofia was part of the throng Friday night, ready to lap up the latest show of Taylor’s Eras Tour.

The 51-year-old sitcom star, who is in the midst of her divorce from Joe Manganiello, was joined by one of her gal pals for her latest night outing.

She was spotted at the concert venue arm in arm with ‘Eyebrow Queen’ Anastasia Soare, who founded the iconic salon Anastasia Beverly Hills.

Anastasia Beverly Hills is a particular favorite of celebrities, who turned out in force this January to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Sofia was part of that party’s guest list, amid a claque of boldface names including Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone, Heidi Klum and Priyanka Chopra.

This Friday night, Anastasia and Sofia were together again, even wearing complementary outfits done in black and silver.

Sofia brought back the 1970s in a dark, flared jumpsuit streaked with silver pinstripes that gleamed under the lights as she headed into the stadium.

Her latest sighting comes two nights after her last luxurious night out on the town – an evening with friends at SoHo House.

The sitcom queen – who has agreed to handover custody of their beloved dog — was spotted arriving at the West Hollywood location on Wednesday.

She hopped out of her black luxury car in a stylish outfit that included a pair of tall black heels, high-waisted denim jeans and a busty black bodysuit that also showed off her sculpted arms.

Her honey-toned hair looked freshly blown out and a white woven Birkin bag was slung across her svelte frame.

The Colombian beauty showed up to the members-only club solo.

Earlier this week, Vergara asked the judge overseeing her divorce from Manganiello to stick to the terms of a prenuptial agreement they signed.

She made the request in a new filing, while also requesting that she be able to retain her current assets, according to documents obtained by People.

The latest legal development for her and her 46-year-old estranged husband comes after claims that one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the couple was the True Blood star’s desire to have children.

Manganiello had previously cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ when he filed for divorce two days after the couple announced their split, and Vergara responded with the same reason for the separation in her filing from July 26.

In addition to requesting the court follow the terms of their prenuptial agreement, she also asked that she be allowed to keep her jewelry, artwork and ‘other personal effects,’ which she considered assets.

She has also said that she should be able to retain all of her earnings from before she tied the knot with Manganiello, as well as any income from while they were married.

While the couple’s money and possessions should be easy enough to divide, especially if Manganiello opts not to challenge the prenup, it’s less clear what will happen with one of their most beloved — and furry — assets: their Chihuahua–Pomeranian mix, Bubbles.

‘They still have a few issues to figure out, like custody of their dog, Bubbles,’ an insider told Us Weekly late last week. ‘But Sofia hopes they can move forward in a calm, fair fashion.’

Under California law, pets were previously treated similarly to property, so the partner who originally adopted the animal would likely get precedence when it came to dividing their assets.

However, a law passed in the state in 2019 gives judges more discretion to determine which party will get pets or how the exes will share the animals.

That might increase the odds of Joe spending more time with Bubbles, even though Sofía was the one who apparently bought the dog.

In a 2021 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Colombian-born actress joked that the tiny pooch instantly preferred spending time with the Magic Mike actor after she brought it home.

‘I don’t have a dog. It’s not mine, it’s Joe’s dog,’ she said, even though she originally purchased Bubbles as her own pet.

After the comedian showed her audience a cute photo of Bubbles, Sofía chimed in and called the dog an ‘idiot.’

‘It doesn’t even look like a Chihuahua, it looks like some sort of teddy bear,’ she said in a comically dismissive tone. ‘The dog was for me, I got the dog, but she arrived and completely ignored me. Went straight to Joe. She has taken everything that was mine.’

Even though she had the audience in stitches, the actress added, ‘It’s not funny — it’s horrible, she’s taken my husband, my bed.’

However, she added that it wasn’t Joe’s fault, as it was Bubbles who was ‘obsessed’ with him.

He has often appeared on his and her Instagram pages, and in public, with Bubbles in his arms, and when Manganiello made a brief appearance via video chat in Magic Mike’s Last Dance earlier this year, his character held Bubbles on camera.

Fans began to suspect that something was wrong with Sofía and Joe’s relationship after she was seen celebrating her birthday in Italy alone, and a birthday message that Joe shared on Instagram added to concerns due to its supposedly ‘cold’ tone.

The exes were introduced by Sofía’s Modern Family costar Jesse Tyler Ferguson at the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

At the time, she was still engaged to the businessman Nick Loeb, but after they split a few weeks later, Joe enquired about her number.

The two were engaged within the year, and they tied the knot in 2015. 

The wife of the CEO of OceanGate, who was piloting the missing Titanic tourist submersible, is descended from a wealthy New York couple who drowned on the Titanic when the famed ship hit an iceberg in 1912.

Wendy Rush is the wife of Stockton Rush, one of the five people trapped in a Titan sub that went missing Sunday after a trip to visit the Titanic wreckage.

Crews are now racing to try and find the missing sub in a massive international rescue effort.

Wendy’s great-great-grandparents, Isidor and Ida Straus, died in the 1912 disaster.

Isidor is a co-founder of Macy’s department store. He and his wife were featured in James Cameron’s 1997 film about the disaster as the two fictionalized versions were shown embraced on a better as water rushed into the ship and around them.

The pair had in real life been offered seats on a lifeboat – her as a woman, and him as a well-known former congressman and co-owner of Macy’s department store. But Isidor refused, saying he would not go until all the women and children had gone, and Ida then refused to go without her husband of 40 years.

She gave her mink coat to her maid, Ellen Bird, to keep her warm as she sailed away on the lifeboat.

Wendy Rush, born Wendy Hollings Weil, married engineer and entrepreneur Stockton Rush in 1986.

She is descended from Isidor and Ida Straus’s daughter Minnie, who married Dr. Richard Weil in 1905. 

Their son, Richard Weil Jr., later served as president of Macy’s New York, and his son, Dr. Richard Weil III, is Wendy Rush’s father, The New York Times reported. 

Wendy Rush has visited the Titanic wreckage three times with her husband’s company in the last two years, and works as OceanGate’s communications director.

Stockton Rush, 61, founded OceanGate in 2009.

The Seattle-born, Princeton-educated aeronautical engineer worked on fighter jets and initially hoped to go to Mars before switching his attention to the sea.

He tried to buy explorer Steve Fossett’s submersible after his death in 2007, but was unable to do so and began creating his own.

Rush admitted that parts of his sub were improvised – it is controlled by a video game controller, and the light inside was bought from an online camping website – but said it had been built with help from Boeing, NASA and the University of Washington.

Yet it emerged Tuesday that OceanGate’s safety record had been questioned by an industry body.

A 2018 letter to Rush, obtained by the New York Times, warned that ‘the current ‘experimental’ approach’ of the company could result in problems ‘from minor to catastrophic.’

It was sent by the Manned Underwater Vehicles committee of the Marine Technology Society, a 60-year-old trade group that aims to promote ocean technology and educate the public about it.

But it is unclear if any employee or Rush himself responded to the letter, and there was no further detail on why the approach was considered dangerous.

Officials searching for the missing sub have warned that they may not be able to rescue the missing tourist sub even if they find it.

The sub’s oxygen supply was at just 24 hours from Wednesday, giving rescue crews until Thursday morning to find it before it runs out.

Rescue crews from the US, France and Canada are still trying to find the vessel, which is understood to have last ‘pinged’ while directly above the Titanic wreck.

In addition to Rush, the passengers are British billionaire Hamish Harding; French Titanic expert PH Nargeolet; and Pakistani fathe and son Shahzada Dawood, 48, and Sulaiman Dawood, 19.

First District Response Coordinator Capt. Jamie Frederick said the Coast Guard has already searched 7,600 square miles of ocean – a search area the size of Connecticut.

At 12,500ft underwater, there are few vessels able to dive deep enough to find it.

It comes after DailyMail.com revealed that OceanGate refused to put their submersible through an independent inspection process and fired a director in 2018 after he asked for more rigorous safety tests on the craft, named Titan.

Bosses fired David Lochridge, who was Director of Marine operations for the Titan project, after disagreeing with his demand for more rigorous safety checks on the submersible, including ‘testing to prove its integrity’.

The company also opted against having the craft ‘classed’, an industry-wide practice whereby independent inspectors ensure vessels meet accepted technical standards.

OceanGate, which charges up to $250,000 for a seat on the submersible, suggested that seeking classification could take years and would be ‘anathema to rapid innovation’.

In 2019, the firm added that seeking classification for Titan would not ‘ensure that operators adhere to proper operating procedures and decision-making processes – two areas that are much more important for mitigating risks at sea’.

Classification involves recruiting an independent organization to ensure vessels like ships and submersibles meet industry-wide technical standards. It is a crucial way of ensuring a vessel is fit to operate. 

The Manned Underwater Vehicles committee of the Marine Technology Society said in a statement about the tragedy that the ‘modern commercial submarine industry’ is ‘regulated in accordance with international safety standards through classification societies.’

They added: ‘These organizations have rules and safety standards for the design and construction of systems ranging from submersible vehicles to super tankers and oil platforms.

‘The main classification organizations for submersibles include the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Det Nortke Veritas (DNV) and Lloyds Registry (LR) among others.

‘The submarine industry has a safety record of fifty years without incident. 

‘This is due to the engineering discipline and professional approach exercised by members of the industry, and the collective observation of (and adherence to) a variety of safety standards.’

British Gas owner Centrica predicts ‘significantly higher’ profits from household energy business

• Centrica told investors the opening five months of 2023 were ‘strong overall’ 
• Its anticipates full-year adjusted EPS will be towards the top end of forecasts
• CEO Chris O’Shea’s proposed £4.5m pay packet has been heavily criticised

By Harry Wise For This Is Money

Updated: 09:00 EDT, 13 June 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

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Chinese scientists claim to have designed a brain implant that allows a monkey to control a robotic arm using just its mind.

Researchers at Nankai University shared the announcement on May 5, praising it as a breakthrough that will improve the lives of people with disabilities.

The brain-computer transforms electroencephalogram (EEG) signals into the animal’s control instructions to navigate the machine with food attached.

The research has not been peer-reviewed, and the claims – which cannot be verified independently – are only available in a statement on the university’s website. 

‘The trial was led by the team of Professor Duan Feng of Nankai University and jointly completed with the General Hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (301 Hospital) and Shanghai Xinwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd,’ the announcement reads.

‘This experiment is a further result obtained on the basis of the previous interventional brain-computer interface animal (sheep) experiment. EEG signal recognition and other core technologies.’

The university shared an image of the team performing surgery on the monkey as it received the brain implant.

The sedated monkey is lying on a table where doctors see a screen showing the procedure.

‘The interventional brain-computer interface developed by Professor Duan Feng’s team, through interventional surgery, attaches the interventional EEG sensor to the wall of monkey brain vessels and can collect intracranial EEG signals without craniotomy,’ researchers shared in the announcement.

‘Type and non-invasive brain-computer interface, considering security and recognition stability.’

The interventional EEG sensor passes through the jugular vein, enters the sagittal sinus, and reaches the motor cortex brain area. 

After the operation, the EEG signals were successfully collected and recognized, realizing the animals’ active control of the robotic arm.

‘The results of the interventional brain-computer interface experiment carried out in the brains of non-human primates have promoted the advancement of interventional brain-computer interface from laboratory prospective research to clinical application, and will help promote,’ according to Professor Duan Feng. 

‘The industrial upgrading of medical enterprises, through the combination of medicine and industry to create a national brand of high-end medical equipment, will have broad market prospects in the field of brain disease medical rehabilitation in the future.’

While researchers have yet to release a complete study, other companies have already tested their implants in humans – and provided evidence that they work. 

Inner Cosmos announced its ‘digital pill’ in January that aims to cure depression and is now in the skull of the first human patient. 

The device includes an electrode that sits under the skin of the scalp and the ‘prescription pod’ that snaps onto the user’s hair to power the device.

The implant sends tiny electrical pulses to the brain region affected by depression – the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – once daily for 15 minutes.

Synchron began human trials of its brain implant in July, which lets the wearer control a computer using thought alone.

The firm’s Stentrode brain implant, about the size of a paperclip, will be implanted in six New York and Pittsburgh patients with severe paralysis.

Stentrode will let patients control digital devices by thinking and allow them to perform daily tasks, including texting, emailing and online shopping.

Then there is Elon Musk’s Neuralink, surrounded by controversy due to activists claiming the company has violated animal rights.

In March, Neuralink’s request to test its chip on humans was rejected by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The agency outlined dozens of issues the company must address before human testing, a critical milestone for final product approval, Neuralink staffers told Reuters.

The concerns include the device’s lithium battery; the potential for the implant´s tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue, the employees said.

Musk applied in early 2022, but staffers said the company co-founder has yet to solve all the problems – even though the billionaire revealed human trials would start six months back in November. 

The company has been under scrutiny for the past few months as animal advocacy groups and former employees are sounding the alarm over animal welfare violations.

Lab notes by staffers who conducted experiments at the University of California Davis (UC Davis) show animal issues with the implants, echoing the FDA’s concerns.

The FDA’s rejection listed dozens of what the agency calls ‘deficiencies’ that the company must address before human trials, five Neuralink sources said.

Chip designer Arm registers for US stock market listing – set to be this year’s biggest

By Daily Mail City & Finance Reporter

Published: 16:50 EDT, 30 April 2023 | Updated: 03:17 EDT, 1 May 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

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