Brian, no I have no data, but I have a lot of respect for INTC's prowess, thus my opinion that the delay is engineered. INTC has enough cash to pay ahead of schedule and incentive bonuses. They would not lose a contractor for delayed payments, unless they wanted to lose said contractor. No data, just an opinion. Do you really think that INTC is incompetent and will lose a work team for failing to pay in time? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn...
Look at it from another point of view, this is a $1.5 B facility, INTC is a good company, thus their cost of money is only .5% per month, each month of delay cost them $7.5 MM, if they could accelerate by manitaning work forces and paying them bonuses they have at least $7.5 per month to "spread". Of course, once the facility is up and operational, the monthly cash flow generated will be much greater than that, but only if the product does not end up up as idle inventory. Pushing out the opening can be explained, IMHO, only because they have decided they may not need it as fast as they thought they would.
By the way, just last month they got into a big argument with the Israeli Government on incentives to build another facility there, and strangely enough, reasons for not completing the negotiations were found. Coincidence?
Zeev |
