Intel Corp is replacing its chief executive officer after only two years in what had been a rough stretch for the chipmaker.
Bob Swan, who became the company’s CEO in early 2019, is in the middle of next month to be replaced by industry veteran Pat Gelsinger, the company said.
The choice of Gelsinger, who decades ago started his career as an Intel engineer, puts the semiconductor pioneer back in the hands of a tech expert at a time when it is struggling to keep up with market changes and growing competition.
Photo: Reuters
On Wednesday, Intel’s stock jumped 7 percent on news of the change at the top.
The California-based company said that the change in leadership is unrelated to its financial performance last year, but the surprise shake-up followed several weeks of investor activism by hedge fund Third Point LLC, which had pushed for big changes.
Intel late last month acknowledged that it had received a letter from the New York-based fund and was working with it on ideas “regarding enhanced shareholder value.”
Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb on Wednesday wrote on Twitter that “Swan is a class act and did the right thing for all stakeholders stepping aside for Gelsinger.”
Intel spokesman William Moss said that the leadership change “was not driven by Third Point.”
Intel chairman Omar Ishrak said in a prepared statement that “the board concluded that now is the right time to make this leadership change to draw on Pat’s technology and engineering expertise during this critical period of transformation at Intel.”
the chipmaker last year disclosed that there would be a substantial delay in its development of a next-generation process already in use by other major suppliers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
The unexpected snag meant that Intel’s 7-nanometer processing technology is unlikely to be ready until the end of next year or early 2023, potentially putting the company behind its rivals.
Apple Inc last year also dealt a blow to Intel when it began replacing Intel processors with Apple-designed chips in its new computers.
Intel faced yet another challenge when US graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp announced plans to buy UK-based Arm Ltd in a deal that would create a global powerhouse in the industry.
Gelsinger has since 2012 been CEO of software company VMware Inc and has more than four decades of experience in the industry. He spent most of that time with Intel, where he began his career and was its first chief technology officer.
Swan, a former chief financial officer at Intel, assumed interim leadership in 2018. His finance background, including top finance roles at eBay Inc and several other firms, marked a shift for Intel, which has mostly had engineers at the top since its 1968 founding, although its fifth CEO was an economist.
Swan said in a prepared statement that it is the right time for a transition and that he fully supports Gelsinger’s arrival.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to