The American billionaire Dan Loeb has acquired a stake in the capital of the chipmaker Intel, which he is now asking to separate from its production activities, US media said Tuesday.
Read also: Microsoft will equip its servers with its own chips to the chagrin of Intel
Dan loeb made this request in a letter sent by his investment fund, Third Point, to Omar Ishrak, the CEO of the American group.
He announced that he now held a stake valued at $ 1 billion and regretted that Intel, once a leader in the production of microprocessors, has lost ground to Asian competitors like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), say CNBC and
the Wall Street Journal
.
He also criticizes the fact that the group is no longer at the forefront in chips for computers and data centers, now overtaken by AMD.
Intel is also absent from artificial intelligence, a market dominated by Nvidia, still regrets Dan Loeb.
The billionaire notes that Intel customers like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have started developing and designing solutions in-house and are increasingly turning to Southeast Asian chipmakers for the production.
He urges Intel to find a way to retain these customers as quickly as possible, which he says requires the separation of chip design activities from semiconductor production operations.
"Without an immediate change at Intel, we fear America's access to advanced semiconductor supplies will erode, forcing the United States to rely heavily on geopolitically unstable Southeast Asia. for powering everything from PCs to data centers to critical infrastructure and more, ”
insists Dan Loeb in his letter.
Inter share gains 5% on Wall Street
Contacted by AFP, the entourage of the financier did not respond immediately.
The company
"accepts input from all investors on how to improve shareholder investments
,
"
Intel replied, in a statement.
"In this regard, we look forward to discussing their ideas with Third Point
.
"
The markets hailed Dan Loeb's activism: Intel shares gained nearly 5% on Wall Street on Tuesday.
Dan Loeb is one of the activist shareholders who have traditionally shaken up the management of companies they consider poorly managed.
He never hesitates to engage in arm wrestling to obtain changes which usually involve the dismantling of the company via splits or cessions of activities deemed non-strategic.
In the end, the directions often end up bending.