How SoftBank played it safe in pricing Arm’s IPO

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son was in San Francisco on Wednesday when he joined a call with his bankers in New York to make a final decision about his company’s most valuable asset: chip designer Arm Holdings.

Arm’s blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed by 12 times, and could have been priced at $52 per share, above the indicated range of $47 to $51, people familiar with the matter said.

But the bankers, who had huddled at the offices of SoftBank’s financial advisor Raine Group, argued it was better to leave the additional $1 per share — equivalent to about $1 billion in value — on the table.