ARM is gone - sometimes M&A is a good thing

Softbank bought ARM today £24 billion.


It is a great price, but as ever the UK model is to build and sell. It is almost impossible in the UK to become the dominating player in an industry - it makes Vodafone and GSK almost unique.


It also shows, whatever the naysayers in the city tell everyone, that M&A works. If you are a small company and growing, you need to bet the farm on overseas growth and acquisitions; just like Softbank have done.


If you remain an organic growth focused business the chances of you dominating your chosen sector(s) globally is tiny.


Yet the same people who bemoan that Brits sell-out to the world all the time (this is true, Brits have a life view very different to Yanks or others in that a few millions is enough, no need for billions); also bemoan that M&A is only for the Banksters and serves no purpose.


The counter-factual here is what if ARM had used its shareprice to buy into a new business that really scaled it - but it never did. Instead it made a whole host of small acquisitions in businesses aligned with itself.


SO, like many before it, it is gone to the Japanese. Hopefully they can keep the mainstay of the business in the UK for the foreseeable.