Freescale Semiconductor Inc, taken private in a US$17.6 billion buyout in 2006, may be ready for an initial public offering in the coming year, chief executive officer Rich Beyer said.
The Austin, Texas-based chipmaker has reorganized its debts and improved its performance, building “credibility in the marketplace,” Beyer said. If the economy continues to recover and the semiconductor industry grows next year, the company will be in a position to sell shares, he said.
“We believe that we will be in a position to do an IPO,” he said on Tuesday. “We have a capital structure that works.”
Freescale, the largest supplier of chips to US automakers, will aim to raise more than US$1 billion to pay down US$1.2 billion of debt coming due in 2014, Beyer said. The company piled on debt when it was taken private by Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group, Permira Advisers LLP and TPG Capital. Those investors won’t sell their own shares yet and will allow the company to raise cash with new equity in the IPO, Beyer said.
The company’s net loss narrowed to US$156 million last quarter, while sales jumped 29 percent to US$1.15 billion. It ended the quarter with US$1.07 billion of cash and paid out US$144 million in interest.
Freescale, which also supplies the main chips in Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle and Sony Corp’s Reader said the market for those devices hasn’t been hurt by Apple Inc’s iPad. Improvements in the reading experience they offer will continue to outpace that of more general tablets computers, Beyer said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is