Arm Holdings takeover: has Nvidia had its chips?

The takeover of Britain’s semiconductor group Arm Holdings by its US rival Nvidia could be running into the sand, says Matthew Partridge.

The $40bn acquisition of British semiconductor manufacturer Arm Holdings by America’s Nvidia has been left hanging in the balance, says Amy Thomson on Bloomberg. The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, says the government may intervene to prevent the tie-up. Dowden has ordered the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is already looking at the impact on competition, to investigate the national security aspects of the deal too.

He notes that the semiconductors are not only “fundamental” to a “wide range of technologies”, including those in defence and national security, but also “underpin the UK’s critical national infrastructure”. Nvidia’s ownership could bring Arm under the “control of powerful US national security laws” that could one day be “used against Britain’s interests”, says Hannah Boland in The Daily Telegraph.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri