AMD shareholders approve spinoff operations

A good step forward for AMD as shareholders of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Wednesday approved a spinoff of the company's manufacturing operations. The move, approved by 94 percent of the shares at the vote, will improve the company's financial situation and have it concentrate only on designing chips rather than manufacturing them. AMD will enter into a joint venture with Advanced Technology Investment Co., which is an Abu Dhabi investment fund. The joint venture was first announced last fall.

The venture will be called the Foundry Co. and under the deal, another Abu Dhabi investment fund, Mubadala Development Co., will provide about $800 million to the new company. Last week, AMD postponed a scheduled shareholder meeting about the approval because less than 50 percent of the shares were eligible to vote. This time, just over 50 percent were present, at 50.26 percent, though it is not known what changed in just one week's time to cause this.

The deal is expected to close on March 2nd.