SoftBank-Owned Arm Appoints Rene Haas as CEO, Member of Board

SoftBank Group-owned chip designer Arm said on Tuesday it had appointed Rene Haas as its chief executive officer and member of the board, effective immediately.

“Rene is the right leader to accelerate Arm’s growth as the company looks to re-enter the public markets,” Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank, said in a statement.

As per a report by Bloomberg, Haas, 59, was promoted to the top post at the UK’s biggest tech company after its owner, Japan’s SoftBank, announced that its proposed sale to Nvidia has been abandoned. His predecessor, Simon Segars, is resigning for personal reasons.

Arm was expected to be acquired by Nvidia, however, following persistent objections from regulators, Nvidia will reportedly scrap the $40 billion (roughly Rs. 2,98,600 crore) bid. In December 2021, US regulators filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger, while British and European regulators had ordered probes into the deal.

Arm-parent SoftBank reportedly said that it will now proceed with an IPO instead of the sale.

Ending a troubled sale process that’s kept the chip designer mired in uncertainty will help refocus the company, Haas said in an interview. While Arm has financially never performed better, his first challenge is to fire up its employees.

“It’s going to be taking a company that’s been in stall mode because of the Nvidia acquisition and getting us reinvigorated to move forward,” Haas was quoted by the Bloomberg report as saying. “It’s been hard for employees at many companies and then you layer on the uncertainty we’ve had.”