Shares in chip designer Arm jump 60% as it cashes in on the AI boom

Shares in British chip designer Arm soared yesterday as it cashed in on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom.

On its best day of trading since making its debut in New York last year, the Cambridge-based group rose more than 60 per cent to an all-time high of $126 before falling back to around the $116 mark, which was still 50 per cent up on the day.

It has more than doubled in value since it snubbed London to list on the Nasdaq at $51 a share in September.

It is now worth close to £100billion, cementing its status as one of Britain’s few world-beating tech giants.

But its success will rub salt into City wounds after a campaign to convince it to list in London fell on deaf ears.

AI winner: On its best day of trading since making its debut in New York last year, the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm rose more than 60% to an all-time high of $126

Victoria Scholar, an analyst at Interactive Investor, said: ‘For the UK market and those that pushed hard to attract Arm to list on the London Stock Exchange, the stellar results, and the share price reaction, is a nasty blow.

‘London’s listed market continues to suffer from a chronic lack of exciting technology prospects, contributing to the underperformance of the FTSE 100 versus the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.’

Founded in 1990, Arm has long been hailed as a UK technology darling, designing microchips used in billions of smartphones and other devices.

It was listed on both the FTSE 100 and Nasdaq before it was taken private by Japan’s SoftBank in a £26billion deal back in 2016.

When it returned to the stock market last year, it chose New York despite lobbying from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the London Stock Exchange.

Investors were rejoicing yesterday as Arm chief executive Rene Haas said the company was benefiting from the ‘profound opportunity’ brought by AI.

The company’s revenues hit £653million in the three months to the end of December, which was up by 14 per cent year-on-year, and well above estimates of £605million. 

The tech firm also increased its full-year revenue guidance from between £2.35billion and £2.46billion to between £2.5billion and £2.54billion.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Arm ‘blew forecasts out of the water’.

Russ Mould, an analyst at AJ Bell, said: ‘UK investors feeling peeved that Cambridge-based chips champion ARM didn’t return to the London stock market will have that feeling magnified by the company’s latest update.’

The update came amid much soul-searching in the City of London after a string of recent snubs.

Last week gambling giant Flutter said that it will switch its ‘primary’ listing from London to New York, while travel firm Tui is voting next week on whether to move its listing to Frankfurt.

Building materials supplier CRH and plumbing group Ferguson have also opted to move to New York.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk