The United Kingdom's Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, has said that he would have intervened to block the sale of the British microchip company Arm Holdings back in 2016, had he been in government at the time.
Arm Holdings is a Cambridge-based firm that was once considered the crown jewel of UK technology. It was bought by the Japanese company SoftBank, and was later listed in New York in 2023.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kyle said that Arm Holdings could have been the UK's own trillion-dollar company. He argued that, if Arm were still listed in the United Kingdom, it would be the largest listing on the stock exchange.
According to him, the company would be around 40% of the way towards the trillion-dollar valuation that he believes the country needs. He said the UK desperately needs to go that extra bit to finish the journey here at home.
To illustrate the point, he pointed to the SpaceX listing that is about to take place, and to stories of welders who are set to become millionaires because they were among the very first holders of stock in the company. He said the UK needs that kind of ability to create wealth.
The Secretary of State for Business at the time Arm was bought by SoftBank was Greg Clark. Asked whether he would have stopped the sale, Mr Kyle said that, looking back, he now would have. However, he added that he was not going to criticise Greg Clark for the decisions made in that moment in time.
Mr Kyle was speaking during London Tech Week, as the government announced a number of initiatives designed to attract and keep fast-growing technology companies in the United Kingdom.