Altera Shares Climb on Report That an Intel Deal Is Near
finance.yahoo.com
By Scott Moritz - 15 minutes ago
Altera Corp. shares touched a 14-year intraday high after the New York Post reported that Intel Corp. is near a deal to buy the semiconductor maker for about $15 billion.
Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, has been looking for growth beyond the struggling personal-computer market. The price could be as high as $54 a share, the New York Post said, citing an unidentified person with knowledge of the talks.
Shares of Altera, which makes a broad range of low-power programmable chips, rose 5.1 percent to $49.36 at 9:37 a.m. in New York, after reaching as high as $49.83. As of Thursday’s close, the stock had risen 36 percent since March 26, the day before Intel was first reported to be interested in a deal. Intel rose 1.2 percent to $34.43 Friday morning.
Altera rejected an offer of about $54 a share from Santa Clara, California-based Intel last month, people familiar with the negotiations said at the time.
An e-mail sent to Intel media relations outside of U.S. business hours wasn’t immediately answered. Altera spokeswoman Nisha Ruhomutally didn’t immediately respond to a phone call and an e-mail requesting comment.
The addition of Altera could help Intel expand its most profitable business: supplying server chips used in data centers.
While PC-chip sales are declining as more consumers rely on tablets and smartphones to get online, the data centers needed to churn out information and services for those mobile devices are driving orders for higher-end Intel processors and shoring up profitability. Sales in Intel’s data-center division rose 19 percent in the first quarter. The demand for server chips has helped Intel forecast 62 percent gross margins for the current quarter, slightly higher than analysts estimated.
(A previous version of this story was corrected to say that Altera’s public-relations officer is a woman.) |
