A two-year-old Shanghai-based developer of chip design software was behind an attempt to buy a British firm, a purchase that regulators blocked with little explanation in the latest example of Britain’s increasing hostility toward Chinese investment.
Super Orange HK Holding Ltd (香港超橙控股有限公司) was blocked from buying Bristol-based chip design software provider Pulsic Ltd, British Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng said in a brief statement on Wednesday.
However, Super Orange is controlled by little-known Shanghai UniVista Industrial Software Group (上海合見工業軟件集團), according to Hong Kong public filings and Chinese corporate data.
Photo: Reuters
The Shanghai firm is backed by the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (國家集成電路產業投資基金) — a powerful US$50 billion state-backed vehicle known within the industry as the “Big Fund” (大基金).
It is unclear what roles Super Orange’s controlling shareholders played in the takeover attempt. Pulsic’s would-be acquirer was founded in Hong Kong in August last year by Nanjing Puxin Software, according to local filings.
That firm is wholly owned by UniVista, according to Chinese corporate database Tianyancha.
UniVista was incorporated only in 2020 and describes itself as a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools to the chip industry, or software kits vital to the design of semiconductors. Its No. 2 owner was the Big Fund, which typically bankrolls promising start-ups in their initial stages, according to Tianyancha.
Little is known about Puxin, the UniVista subsidiary that directly controls Super Orange. The office number listed in Puxin’s legal documents did not exist when Bloomberg News visited the Nanjing campus listed on Thursday. Several employees at the business park said the address does not conform with the usual format within the location.
The US has been leaning on allies from the UK to Japan to join in efforts to block China’s chip goals. Pulsic is also a player in EDA tools, employed by leading chipmakers ranging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to Intel Corp.
Beijing considers the sector, dominated by American firms Synopsys Inc and Cadence Design Systems Inc, a key bottleneck in its ambitions to build a world-class semiconductor industry and wean China off US technology.
Pulsic’s would-be acquirer — Super Orange HK Holding — had a sole and founding director identified as Zhou Nuo. He ceded his post in December to Xu Yun (徐昀), Hong Kong filings showed. Xu, the former head of Cadence’s Chinese business, is now a co-CEO at UniVista.
Xu, once named one of China’s most influential female chip executives, was also a director of the similarly named Super Orange HK Ltd, a separate entity founded in March that is wholly owned by Shanghai UniVista Technology. Her co-CEO is Pan Jianyue (潘建岳), who headed Synopsys Inc’s China and Asia-Pacific business before the pair founded the other UniVista Industrial last year.
Xu and Pan said in an interview in November last year that they harbor ambitions to not just replace US technology, but build a globe-spanning operation that can go toe-to-toe with the industry’s leaders.
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