The boss of Arm netted £55m last year after floating the British chipmaker on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange, according to reports.
Rene Haas, the chief executive of Cambridge-based tech outfit, pocketed a salary of $1.35m, plus $69m in bonuses and one-time payments linked to the company’s IPO, the Sunday Times reported.
Arm was subject to a major charm offensive from the UK government and London Stock Exchange ahead of its IPO but snubbed the capital in favour of New York. Its share price has since more than doubled to trade at around $120 a share, giving it a market capitalisation of $126bn.
Haas joined the company in 2013 and was lifted into the top job after its sale to rival Nvidia collapsed under pressure from regulators in 2022. Arm’s owner Softbank, which took the company private from the London Stock Exchange in 2016 for £24bn, then orchestrated the IPO.
His pay last year included a $20m “special bonus” linked to the float and $46.3m in separate payments, the Sunday Times reported.
Arm has been among a crop of tech companies to explode in value on the back of a scramble by investors to back AI-related companies. Rival Nvidia has rocketed more than 178 per cent in value over the past year to a value of more than $2.7trillion.
The move to float in New York was seen as a major snub to London and triggered a move from the Financial Conduct Authority to push through changes to its listing rules. Stringent rules on dealmaking by listed companies were reportedly among the reasons the firm snubbed London.