(Reuters) – Intel, which is cutting thousands of jobs in a bid to stay relevant in the chip industry, sold its 1.18 million-share stake in British chip company Arm Holdings in the second quarter, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday.
According to Reuters calculations, Intel would have raised about $146.7 million from the sale, based on the average price of Arm’s shares between April and June.
The chipmaker announced earlier this month that it would lay off more than 15% of its workforce and suspend its dividend due to a drop in spending on traditional data center semiconductors and a shift to AI chips, where it has lagged rivals like Nvidia.
Intel has said it is focusing on developing advanced AI chips and expanding its manufacturing capabilities for third parties, hoping to regain the technological lead it lost to Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
The push to revive its contract foundry business under CEO Pat Gelsinger has pushed up Intel’s costs and squeezed profit margins, forcing Intel to cut costs.
Intel and ARM declined to comment Tuesday when contacted by Reuters about the share sale.
“This appears to be consistent with the restructuring plan and renewed focus on liquidity and efficiency that Gelsinger outlined in the last conference call,” said Cody Acree, an analyst at Benchmark Co.
At the end of June, Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, had $11.29 billion in cash and total current liabilities of about $32 billion.
Intel shares have lost more than 59% of their value so far this year, falling 26% on Aug. 2 after the company suspended its dividend. It was nearly flat in extended trading on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru and Juby Babu in Mexico City; additional reporting by Max Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Sayantani Ghosh and Subhranshu Sahu)
