Commenting on the multi-billion proposed purchase of ARM Holdings by Japanese company Softbank, Councillor Lewis Herbert, Leader of Cambridge City Council said:

“Given the momentous scale of this takeover, it is an important reassurance to staff and our residents that ARM Holdings will continue to operate and have its headquarters in Cambridge, and that the detailed and well advanced plan to double the size of its operations here will proceed as proposed.

While future decisions affecting hundreds of local ARM employees will be taken in Japan as well as the UK, it is also good news that they will preserve the firm’s operating structure, including retaining the Cambridge and wider senior management team and their partnership-based business model.

It is a massive tribute to the creators and staff of ARM that they have grown a business now worth £24 billion from a near zero start.  

While we would prefer more of the bigger companies operating in Cambridge to be UK-owned, the city continues to generate local, highly successful start-ups that could be the ARM Holdings of the future.  Councils locally will continue to make their joint contributions to this by addressing transport challenges, skills, affordable housing and retaining quality of life here as key elements in a special environment where high tech companies thrive.