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The $40bn takeover of UK chip designer Arm Holdings by US tech giant Nvidia faces an in-depth probe after regulators found the deal could weaken rivals and stifle innovation.

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it could ultimately mean more expensive or lower quality products in cutting edge technologies.

These include fields such as gaming, data centres, the “internet of things” – the use of electronic devices connected to the internet such as smart speakers – and self-driving cars.

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UK government ‘should block’ Arm’s sale to Nvidia

The CMA said undertakings offered by Nvidia about the way the business is run could not allay its “serious competition concerns” and that the deal should be more closely examined in a “phase two” investigation.

It said it had worked with other competition authorities around the world to examine the impact of the takeover of Arm, which licenses its designs to most of the global semiconductor industry with customers including Apple, Samsung, Intel and Qualcomm.

The 180 billion chips sold based on its technology are used in products ranging from smartphones to toasters.

Arm’s customers include companies that are rivals of Nvidia in the supply of semiconductor chips and related products.

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It estimates that 70% of the world engages with its technology, the CMA’s report said.

The UK-based company has been put up for sale by current owner Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate, which agreed a deal with Nvidia last September.

SoftBank has agreed to buy ARM Holdings
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SoftBank has agreed to sell Arm Holdings

The CMA was asked, alongside its initial look at competition concerns, to investigate any UK national security implications arising from the deal.

It sent its findings last month to Oliver Dowden, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS), but details are only now being published.

Mr Dowden must make a formal decision on proceeding to the next stage of the probe.

CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli said: “We’re concerned that Nvidia controlling Arm could create real problems for Nvidia’s rivals by limiting their access to key technologies, and ultimately stifling innovation across a number of important and growing markets.

“This could end up with consumers missing out on new products, or prices going up.

“The chip technology industry is worth billions and is vital to products that businesses and consumers rely on every day.

“This includes the critical data processing and datacentre technology that supports digital businesses across the economy, and the future development of artificial intelligence technologies that will be important to growth industries like robotics and self-driving cars.”

Nvidia said in a statement: “We look forward to the opportunity to address the CMA’s initial views and resolve any concerns the government may have.

“We remain confident that this transaction will be beneficial to Arm, its licensees, competition, and the UK.”

Nvidia has previously said that Arm would remain based in Cambridge and its site expanded

A DCMS spokesperson said: “We have received the CMA’s phase one report and the digital secretary will make a decision on whether to proceed to the next phase of the investigation in due course.”

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The Russia-Ukraine war has reshaped global trade and forged new alliances

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The Russia-Ukraine war has reshaped global trade and forged new alliances

The vast majority of policymakers in Westminster, let alone elsewhere around the UK, have never heard of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the geopolitical grouping currently holding its summit at Tianjin, but hear me out on why we should all be paying considerable attention to it.

Because the more attention you pay to this grouping of 10 Eurasian states – most notably China, Russia and India – the more you start to realise that the long-term consequences of the war in Ukraine might well reach far beyond Europe’s borders, changing the contours of the world as we know it.

The best place to begin with this is in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Back then, there were a few important hallmarks in the global economy. The amount of goods exported to Russia by the G7 – the equivalent grouping of rich, industrialised nations – was about the same as China’s exports. Europe was busily sucking in most Russian oil.

But roll on to today and G7 exports to Russia have gone to nearly zero (a consequence of sanctions). Russian assets, including government bonds previously owned by the Russian central bank, have been confiscated and their fate wrangled over. But Chinese exports to Russia, far from falling or even flatlining, have risen sharply. Exports of Chinese transportation equipment are up nearly 500%. Meanwhile, India has gone from importing next to no Russian oil to relying on the country for the majority of its crude imports.

Indeed, so much oil is India now importing from Russia that the US has said it will impose “secondary tariffs” on India, doubling the level of tariffs paid on Indian goods imported into America to 50% – one of the highest levels in the world.

The upshot of Ukraine, in other words, isn’t just misery and war in Europe. It’s a sharp divergence in economic strategies around the world. Some countries – notably the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – have doubled down on their economic relationship with Russia. Others have forsworn Russian business.

And in so doing, many of those Asian nations have begun to envisage something they had never quite imagined before: an economic future that doesn’t depend on the American financial infrastructure. Once upon a time, Asian nations were the biggest buyers of American government debt, in part to provide them with the dollars they needed to buy crude oil, which is generally denominated in the US currency. But since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has begun to sell its oil without denominating it in dollars.

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At the same time, many Asian nations have reduced their purchases of US debt. Indeed, part of the explanation for the recent rise in US and UK government bond yields is that there is simply less demand for them from foreign investors than there used to be. The world is changing – and the foundations of what we used to call globalisation are shifting.

The penultimate reason to pay attention to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is that while once upon a time its members accounted for a small fraction of global economic output, today that fraction is on the rise. Indeed, if you adjust economic output to account for purchasing power, the share of global GDP accounted for by the nations meeting in Tianjin is close to overtaking the share of GDP accounted for by the world’s advanced nations.

And the final thing to note – something that would have seemed completely implausible only a few years ago – is that China and India, once sworn rivals, are edging closer to an economic rapprochement. With India now facing swingeing tariffs from the US, New Delhi sees little downside in a rare trip to China, to cement relations with Beijing. This is a seismic moment in geopolitics. For a long time, the world’s two most populous nations were at loggerheads. Now they are increasingly moving in lockstep with each other.

That is a consequence few would have guessed at when Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet it could be of enormous importance for geopolitics in future decades.

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Aberdeen in exclusive talks to sell investment tips site Finimize

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Aberdeen in exclusive talks to sell investment tips site Finimize

Aberdeen is in exclusive talks to sell Finimize, the investment insights platform it bought just four years ago, as its new chief executive unwinds another chunk of his predecessor’s legacy.

Sky News understands the FTSE-250 asset management group has narrowed its search for a buyer for Finimize to a single party.

The exclusive talks with the buyer – whose identity was unclear on Sunday – have been ongoing for at least a month, according to insiders.

City sources said Brave Bison, the London-listed marketing group that operates a number of community-based businesses, was among the parties that had previously held talks with Aberdeen about a deal.

Finimize charges an annual subscription fee for investment tips, and had more than one million subscribers to its newsletter at the time of Aberdeen’s £87m purchase of the business.

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The sale of Finimize would represent another step in chief executive Jason Windsor’s reshaping of the company, which now has a market capitalisation of £3.6bn.

Mr Windsor, who replaced Steven Bird last year, also ditched the company’s much-ridiculed Abrdn branding, with the group having been formed in 2017 from the merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life.

Investors were left underwhelmed by the merger, which originally valued the enlarged company at about £11bn.

On Friday, Aberdeen shares closed at 194.7p, up 30% during the last year.

Aberdeen declined to comment.

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City veteran Kheraj in contention to chair banking giant HSBC

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City veteran Kheraj in contention to chair banking giant HSBC

Naguib Kheraj, the City veteran, has been shortlisted to become the next chairman of HSBC Holdings, Europe’s biggest bank.

Sky News can reveal that Mr Kheraj, a former Barclays finance chief, is among a small number of contenders currently being considered to replace Sir Mark Tucker.

HSBC, which has a market capitalisation of £165.4bn, has been conducting a search for Sir Mark’s successor since the start of the year.

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In June, Sky News revealed that the former McKinsey boss Kevin Sneader was among the candidates being considered to lead the bank, although it was unclear this weekend whether he remained in the process.

Mr Kheraj would, in many respects, be seen as a solid choice for the job.

He is familiar with HSBC’s core markets in Asia, having spent several years on the board of Standard Chartered, the FTSE-100 bank, latterly as deputy chairman.

He also possesses extensive experience as a chairman, having led the privately held pensions insurer Rothesay Life, while he now chairs Petershill Partners, the London-listed private equity investment group backed by Goldman Sachs.

Mr Kheraj’s other interests have included acting as an adviser to the Aga Khan Development Board and The Wellcome Trust, as well as the Financial Services Authority.

He spent 12 years at Barclays, holding board roles for much of that time, before he went on to become chief executive of JP Morgan Cazenove, the London-based investment bank.

HSBC’s shares have soared over the last year, rising by close to 50%, despite the headwinds posed by President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs regime.

In June, the bank said that Sir Mark would be replaced on an interim basis by Brendan Nelson, one of its existing board members, while it continued the search for a permanent successor.

Ann Godbehere, HSBC’s senior independent director, said at the time: “The nomination and corporate governance committee continues to make progress on the succession process for the next HSBC group chair.

“Our focus is on securing the best candidate to lead the board and wider group over the next phase of our growth and development.”

Sky News revealed late last year that MWM, the headhunter founded by Anna Mann, a prominent figure in the executive search sector, was advising HSBC on the process.

Since then, at least one other firm has been drafted in to work on the mandate.

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Sir Mark, who has chaired HSBC since 2017, steps down at the end of next month to become non-executive chair of AIA, the Asian insurer he used to run.

He will continue to advise HSBC’s board during the hunt for his long-term successor.

As a financial behemoth with deep ties to both China and the US, HSBC is deeply exposed to escalating trade and diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

When he was appointed, Mr Tucker became the first outsider to take the post in the bank’s 152-year history – which has a big presence on the high street thanks to its acquisition of the Midland Bank in 1992.

He oversaw a rapid change of leadership, appointing bank veteran John Flint to replace Stuart Gulliver as chief executive.

The transition did not work out, however, with Mr Tucker deciding to sack Mr Flint after just 18 months.

He was replaced on an interim basis by Noel Quinn in the summer of 2018, with that change becoming permanent in April 2020.

Mr Quinn spent a further four years in the post before deciding to step down, and in July 2024 he was succeeded by Georges Elhedery, a long-serving executive in HSBC’s markets unit, and more recently the bank’s chief financial officer.

The new chief’s first big move in the top job was to unveil a sweeping reorganisation of HSBC that sees it reshaped into eastern markets and western markets businesses.

He also decided to merge its commercial and investment banking operations into a single division.

The restructuring, which Mr Elhedery said would “result in a simpler, more dynamic, and agile organisation” has drawn a mixed reaction from analysts, although it has not interrupted a strong run for the stock.

During Sir Mark’s tenure, HSBC has also continued to exit non-core markets, selling operations in countries such as Canada and France as it has sharpened its focus on its Asian businesses.

On Friday, HSBC’s London-listed shares closed at 946.7p.

HSBC has been contacted for comment.

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