Private equity firm Silver Lake, who have previously invested in GoDaddy, Motorola and Alibaba, have reportedly already made the move.
Private equity firm Silver Lake, who have previously invested in GoDaddy, Motorola and Alibaba, have reportedly already made the move.
Fudzilla, citing multiple independent sources who wish to remain anonymous, are reporting that private equity firm Silver Lake have purchased 20% of AMD in a deal which could secure a short-term cash injection for the troubled chip-maker.
Silver Lake describe themselves as having “Unparalleled Technology Sector Expertise”, claiming over $26bn in combined investments across multiple high-technology firms. Previous investments include Dell, Alibaba, Go Daddy, Skype, Seagate Technology and NASDAQ.
Presupposing a general upward trend to AMD’s fortunes from a low in July – when news broke that their desktop GPU share had fallen to a low of 18% from a three-year high of 34% – the company was seen as an likely target for investment or even acquisition. It seems that someone at Silver Lake agreed. Currently AMD stock is trading for $1.88, and it has a market capitalisation (i.e. value of shares in public hands) of just over $1.4bn.
Much-needed funds would provide some breathing space between now and the release of their next-generation CPU architecture. Zen isn’t due until Q1/Q2 2016 but initial reveals indicate a return to the monolithic core design which Bulldozer deviated from, to (it’s fair to say) disastrous effect. Similarly, a new GPU architecture along with process node shrink is scheduled for 2016, which could mean that next year is make or break for the Red Team.
It should be noted that at this time the news has new official confirmation. Furthermore, in less positive news Fudzilla rounds off by suggesting that a new round of restructuring may be announced soon. Hopefully, for AMD’s sake, the loss of talent won’t be too much to bear.
Source: Fudzilla
