SoftBank Is Said to Be Selling a 25% Stake in ARM Holdings

When SoftBank, the Japanese telecommunications giant, bought the British semiconductor designer ARM Holdings last year for $32 billion, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder, said the deal would bring benefits like jobs and investment to Britain.

Now, just six months later, SoftBank is in final-stage talks to sell a 25 percent stake in ARM, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The roughly $8 billion sale will be to a new $100 billion investment fund that Mr. Son has created with Saudi Arabia and other investors, raising questions about how politicians in Britain, the United States and elsewhere will respond to such investments in their national technology industries. Chips made by ARM power iPhones and millions of other mobile devices worldwide.

Mr. Son met with President Trump before his inauguration in January about using the $100 billion fund to buy stakes in American tech companies, with the aim of creating thousands of new jobs.

While British lawmakers remain sanguine about the proposed sale of ARM to Mr. Son’s investment vehicle, known as Vision Fund, it remains unclear whether American politicians will be as willing for the fund to scoop up stakes in American tech companies.

Representatives for ARM and SoftBank declined to comment. The proposed sale of the ARM stake, which has yet to be completed, was reported earlier by The Financial Times.