Exclusive | Shanghai software firm is behind Hong Kong’s failed bid for UK’s Pulsic, as geopolitics spurs rivalry for semiconductor supremacy

A Shanghai software developer is behind the Hong Kong company that was blocked by the UK government from buying a British provider of chip design solutions, giving the rejected transaction geopolitical undertones amid frayed China-UK relations.

Super Orange HK Holding Limited, which was barred overnight by the UK government from buying Pulsic Limited on national security grounds, was established in Hong Kong in August 2021 by Nanjing Puxin Software Limited. Puxin is in turn wholly owned by Shanghai Hejian Industrial Software Group, also known as UniVista, according to the Chinese corporate registry Qichacha.

UniVista’s co-president Xu Yun is the current director of Super Orange, according to the Shanghai company’s website and Hong Kong’s corporate registry. Xu could not be reached to comment, while Puxin in the Jiangsu provincial capital of Nanjing and UniVista in Shanghai did not respond to requests by the Post for comment.

The UK’s rejection of the takeover of Pulsic, based in Bristol, throws the matter under the geopolitical spotlight. Pulsic’s intellectual property and software could “facilitate the building of cutting-edge integrated circuits” used in a “civilian or military supply chain,” and blocking the Hong Kong firm’s takeover deal is “necessary and proportionate to mitigate the risk to national security,” according to Kwasi Kwarteng, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

UniVista, a start-up founded in March 2021, is an electronic design automation (EDA) and provider of industrial software solutions that focuses on solving “serious challenges and critical issues” faced by semiconductor companies, according to its website. It received a citation this week for an “EDA technology breakthrough” during the 2022 International Integrated Circuit Exhibition and Conference in Nanjing.