SoftBank agrees to sell Arm to Nvidia, CLS buys three office properties

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 38 points higher on Monday, having closed up 0.48% at 6,032.09 on Friday.

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Japan’s SoftBank said it had agreed to sell Arm Holdings to US chip company Nvidia for $40bn, just four years after buying the chipmaker. Nvidia will become Nvidia’s largest shareholder after its pays the Japanese group $21.5bn in common stock and $12bn in cash.

CLS Holdings has agreed to buy three office properties in Greater London and South East England for £59.71m from Aviva Investors. The sites in Richmond, Chelmsford and Leatherhead are 94% let and deliver £3.7m net rent a year with an initial yield of 5.9%.

HgCapital Trust reported a 6.6% improvement in its net asset value per share in its first half on Monday, to 268.5p, as its total net asset value rose £57m to £1.1bn. The FTSE 250 company’s share price fell 7.3% over the six months ended 30 June, to 235.5p, while the FTSE All-Share Index slid 17.5%.

Newspaper round-up

Tens of thousands of pubs, bars, nightclubs and gig venues will not survive increased coronavirus-prevention measures, such as local lockdowns and evening curfews, unless they receive fresh state support, the UK government has been warned. One in four of the 115,000 licensed premises in Britain still had not reopened by the end of August after restrictions were imposed to contain Covid-19, according to data from the analysis firm CGA and AlixPartners. – Guardian

Close to half a million redundancies are likely to be announced in the autumn, although the number could end up exceeding 700,000, according to a study that lays bare the scale of the Covid-19 jobs crisis facing the UK. These job cuts are on top of 240,000 redundancies officially recorded by the government up until June. That means the total redundancy figure for 2020 could top one million. – Guardian

Oracle has triumphed over Microsoft in the fierce contest to run TikTok's operations in the United States, offering it a last-minute reprieve from the wrath of the US government. Sources told US news outlets that the database giant has been chosen by TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, as the new custodian of its 100m American users. – Telegraph

British and European leaders have just weeks to save the car industry from the “devastating” impact of a no-deal Brexit, carmakers from across the continent have warned. Automotive groups from the UK and the rest of the European Union have joined forces to demand negotiators “pull out all the stops” to prevent Britain reverting to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules from the start of next year. – The Times

A drugs company that has launched a treatment for Covid-19 is closing in on a $20 billion takeover of an American peer. Gilead Sciences is said to be nearing an acquisition of Immunomedics, a Nasdaq-listed cancer drug developer, that could be announced as soon as today. Talks between Gilead and Immunomedics initially revolved around a partnership before developing to full takeover talks, The Wall Street Journal reported. - The Times

US close

Markets on Wall Street closed in a mixed state on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.48% at 27,665.64.

The S&P 500 managed gains of 0.05% to 3,340.97, while the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.6% to 10,853.54.