Intel
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Intel has filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering for Mobileye, the chip maker’s autonomous unit, the company said Monday.
The filing is no surprise: Intel (ticker: INTC) announced late last year that it was planning a mid-2022 IPO for Mobileye, which it acquired in 2017 for about $15 billion. Mobileye makes software and chips for both advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) like lane departure warnings and pedestrian detection and avoidance, and full-on autonomous driving.
Intel previously has said it expects to maintain a majority stake in Mobileeye. It would almost certainly use the proceeds from the public portion of the transaction to help fund its aggressive push to build more chip factories. In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that the pending offering could value Mobileye for more than $50 billion. If that holds it would represent about a quarter of Intel’s current market capitalization of just under $200 billion.
In 2021, Mobileye had revenue of $1.4 billion, up 43% from the previous year, with operating profit of $460 million, according to Intel’s most recent earnings report. If similar growth is assumed for this year, revenue would be about $2 billion, with an implied valuation of about 25 times current-year revenue.
Just after Intel announced its plan to take Mobileeye public late last year, a flurry of analyst notes addressed the potential valuation.
New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu wrote at the time that a valuation of more than $50 billion “makes sense to us,” with the implication of trading at more than 50 times estimated 2024 estimated pretax earnings.
Northland Securities analyst Gus Richard also wrote at the time that a valuation in the $50 billion range made sense to him. Richard expects Mobileye to become both a supplier of autonomous driving technology as well as a fleet operator and service provider. He sees tremendous value in the data that the company has collected from the existing fleet of cars already used Mobileye technology.
“Mobileye is the leading supplier of silicon and software for ADAS,” Richard wrote. “Mobileye is in an estimated 45 million to 50 million vehicles, and it collects driving data from these cars. Data is the feedstock in an AI-driven world and Mobileye has more driving data than everyone else combined. Mobileye is leading the deployment of robotaxi and mobility as a service. This makes Mobileye a valuable asset for an autonomous vehicle future.”
Intel shares on Monday were down 0.3% to $47.94. The stock has fallen about 7% year to date.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]
