Following years of poor market performance, Intel’s (INTC.O) stock jumped 10% in premarket trading as Wall Street applauded the appointment of former board member Lip-Bu Tan as CEO. Tan departed the company in August due to disagreements about the company’s future.
Tan will have to turn around the company’s financial situation after it lost out on the semiconductor boom fueled by artificial intelligence while investing billions of dollars to expand its chip manufacturing operations.
Over the last five years, when the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index have more than doubled in value, Intel’s stock has lost roughly 60% of its value. The company has also reported several quarters of market share losses in data centers and PCs, in addition to billion-dollar losses in its manufacturing division.
According to TD Cowen analysts, “Tan in as CEO at Intel was as good as stakeholders could have hoped for,” pointing out that he has “deep relationships” throughout the semiconductor ecosystem that may attract clients to the company’s contract manufacturing division.
Three months after Intel fired CEO Pat Gelsinger, Tan will assume leadership next Monday. Two years prior, Tan had been recruited onto the board to help turn the company around, but he resigned because of differences about the company’s culture and worker size.
Reports that competitors, such as Broadcom (AVGO.O), opens new tab, were assessing the chip design and marketing business, and that TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, had independently investigated taking control of part or all of its plants, have increased skepticism about Intel’s future in recent months.
In a letter to staff, Tan alluded to his intention to turn Intel into a top foundry, which is the industry term for a contract chip manufacturer, and analysts anticipate that Tan would follow Gelsinger in keeping the chip design and production processes together.
According to some observers, the foundry industry would have trouble attracting orders from chip designers who are hesitant to entrust production to a competitor.
