TSMC completes Arm stake sale

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has sold its remaining Arm Holdings stake, closing out an investment it started during Arm’s 2023 initial public offering. (reuters.com) The sale was executed by TSMC Partners, a TSMC subsidiary, over April 28 and April 29. It sold 1.11 million Arm shares at an average price of $207.65 each for total proceeds of about $231 million. (reuters.com) (digitimes.com) TSMC said the disposal added about $174 million to retained earnings. After the transaction, the company said it held no Arm shares. (reuters.com) (digitimes.com) Arm designs chip blueprints used across smartphones, data centers, cars and a growing share of artificial intelligence hardware. TSMC manufactures chips for many of the companies that license those Arm designs. (arm.com) (reuters.com) That makes the sale look more like a portfolio move than a break in industry ties. TSMC described the transaction in its filing as a disposal of an equity investment. (reuters.com) TSMC entered the position in September 2023, when it approved an investment of up to $100 million in Arm’s Nasdaq listing. Arm priced that offering at $51 per share. (reuters.com) (arm.com) The company had already been trimming the holding. Reuters reported TSMC sold 850,000 Arm shares in 2024 at $119.47 each for about $102 million before this final exit. (reuters.com) The numbers show how sharply Arm’s valuation has risen since the IPO. TSMC’s final block sold at more than four times Arm’s 2023 offering price. (arm.com) (reuters.com) Arm shares fell 7.98% on Tuesday, according to Reuters, the day before TSMC’s filing was reported. The filing itself did not give a strategic rationale beyond the equity-investment disposal. (reuters.com) For TSMC, the transaction ends a profitable two-step trade in one of the chip sector’s most closely watched stocks. Its commercial relationship to Arm’s ecosystem now continues without an equity stake. (reuters.com)