SK Hynix CEO says reviewing forming consortium to acquire Arm -Yonhap

• South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix’s (000660.KS) CEO said on Tuesday that it is considering forming a consortium with strategic investors to acquire British semiconductor company Arm Ltd, Yonhap news agency reported.

“I don’t believe Arm is a company that could be bought by one company,” Yonhap cited SK Hynix Vice Chairman and co-CEO Park Jung-ho as saying.

Park’s remarks mean a theoretical review as part of a response to a press query after SK Hynix’s annual shareholders meeting, and does not refer to a specific plan or any ongoing review, SK Hynix said in a statement.

Arm did not have an immediate comment.

SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) is planning to pick Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) as lead underwriter on the initial public offering (IPO) of Arm that could value it at as much as $60 billion, sources told Reuters earlier.

SoftBank has said it will likely list Arm on Nasdaq by March 2023. The IPO preparations come after SoftBank’s deal to sell Arm to Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) for $40 billion was scuppered last month due to objections from U.S. and European antitrust regulators.