Imagination’s Fate

The fate of Imagination’s future domicile – UK or China –  now rests in Whitehall.

“What we think is going on is the Chinese are trying to export the technology base from here to China and that’s inappropriate,” said David Davis yesterday, suggesting that Imagination “should probably try to bring about a purchase of it by somebody else in a Western country. The government should be seeking every mechanism available to them to prevent this removal of our technology – full stop.”

When, last week, Imagination’s owner – China-backed private equity company Canyon Bridge – moved to take control of the Imagination board, a raised eyebrow in Whitehall is said to have indicated that, if appointed, the UK government could disqualify them from serving.

For Canyon Bridge read Ray Bingham – the company’s co-founder and managing partner – now serving as interim CEO of Imagination after Ron Black left last week.

Bingham’s other co-founder, Benjamin Chow, was sentenced to jail for securities fraud by a New York court last year.

That is not the only controversy that has swirled  around Canyon Bridge.

Three years ago, Canyon Bridge tried to buy Lattice Semiconductor but was stopped by the US government.

In the attempt, Bingham was obliged to relinquish  two board seats – one at Cypress and one at Oracle – each of which was said to pay nearly $1m a year.

So Bingham is no stranger to controversy, and courted it again with the apparent opportunism of the  attempted boardroom coup at Imagination because it coincided with the UK government’s distractions with the coronavirus and a hospitalised prime minister.

Now Imagination’s fate depends on DCMS Secretary of State Oliver Dowden.

But there could be someone else with an interest. With the current state of Beijing-Washington relations, it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of man for the US to concoct a reason to intervene and prevent the re-domiciling of Imagination to China.


Comments

2 comments

  1. The very same, Valgamaa, he used to work in the hotel business – he’s not a techie

  2. Would that be the same Ray Bingham who did such a ‘fine’ job at Cadence, and presided over the mess that was Tality?

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