AMD Hires Bank to Arrange Sale or Pursue other Alternatives
A report from Reuters states that Advanced Micro Devices has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co to explore options, which could include a sale, as the chipmaker struggles to find a role in an industry increasingly focused on mobile and away from traditional PCs, according to three sources familiar with the situation. Sources told Reuters on Tuesday that an outright sale of the company is not a priority, and other options for AMD could include a sale of its portfolio of patents.
AMD said in an email to Reuters, "AMD's board and management believe that the strategy the company is currently pursuing to drive long-term growth by leveraging AMD's highly-differentiated technology assets is the right approach to enhance shareholder value. AMD is not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time."
One of Silicon Valley's oldest chipmakers, AMD is laying off engineers and some analysts are concerned it may not find new markets for its chips in time to reverse a declining cash reserve.
AMD's shares have fallen more than 60 percent this year, giving it a market value of about $1.4 billion. It also has long-term debt and capital lease obligations of about $2 billion.
Microsoft Corp, Google Inc, Samsung Electronics, Intel Corp and even Facebook Inc have been suggested by Wall Street analysts as potential suitors that could benefit from some of AMD's chip business, including its graphics division, PC processors and server chips.
Others say AMD's most valuable asset may be its deep bench of engineers or its patents.
Senior Member
Posts: 6084
Joined: 2004-10-30
AMD isn't going anywhere, we will still have Radeon etc, they are just trying to sell parts of the company to venture into other fields. Take Mobile for example from the article. IF they find a buyer for that division of AMD, if its a worthy company they can turn it into something big.
That is what this is about, not AMD going under all together.
People always get the wrong idea and twist it around into something else.
*EDIT*
AMD have denied it.
http://www.dailytech.com/Reuters+Claims+AMD+is+Pursuing+a+Sale+AMD+Denies+it/article29192.htm
ps why doesnt the forums search function work properly?
I searched for threads including AMD in the title and this isnt included.
This is good to know, thanks!
Senior Member
Posts: 6125
Joined: 2003-07-26
One can deny it to prevent investors selling prematurely even if its true welcome to the world of something.. Or get a false jump of stock value to have it just tank anyways when they find out there is no sale...
Senior Member
Posts: 856
Joined: 2008-04-10
Amd will not stop producing processors or GPU's. Just think back to the Bill gates and Steve Jobs situation back in the late 90's early 2000. Where Microsoft had to bail out Apple and donate them a sill amount of money so competition would still be there for Microsoft. The European Monopoly commission would hurt Intel and Nvidia if they were seen to have NO competition and to be dominating the market. Intel will play there part in bailing them out if need be. And I also See Intel having there eye on the 64bit CPU line so again bailing them out would be of serious interest.
Senior Member
Posts: 4194
Joined: 2006-10-11
Supply and demand. First rule.
If there is no competition, why should you lower your prices. Prices are only lowered to either shift stock to make way for new stock or to compete with competitors.
I do agree that from a customer moral sense, they would be shooting themselves in the foot potentially as customers may rebel, but rebel to what? No computer upgrades?
The scenario should AMD leave the CPU market is that there is no alternate to Intel for the average consumer.
Competition has nothing to do with supply and demand. If demand is not high enough to justify an increase of price, then the price won't increase. Just because AMD pulls out doesn't mean the demand for Intel's CPUs will increase. There will be more of a market for Intel's CPUs but the demand for overpriced CPUs will not suddenly go up. The people who buy AMD CPUs are looking for price:performance, they won't be like "well derp imma spend a bajillion dollars on Intel because it's my only choice now".
Intel's supply of mid-high range CPUs won't really be affected at all by this news. I'm sure they have plenty of extras in stock, plus most of the demand probably goes to their lower-tier processors.
Senior Member
Posts: 225
Joined: 2011-05-01
When they released Bulldozer and it didn't live up to the expectations it was obvious that this was going to happen. The AMD Cpus just couldn't compete with Intel. That's what you get for laying off your engineer staff.