Intel jumps nearly 15% as investors cheer appointment of new CEO Tan

By Aditya Soni

(Reuters) -Shares of Intel surged nearly 15% on Thursday, as Wall Street cheered its decision to name former board member Lip-Bu Tan as CEO, who left in August over differences about the chipmaker's direction, after several years of market underperformance.

Tan will be tasked with reviving the company's fortunes after it missed out on the artificial intelligence-driven semiconductor boom while plowing billions of dollars into building out its chip-making business. Intel has posted several quarters of market share losses in data centers and PCs, as well as billion-dollar losses in its manufacturing business, and over the past five years, the stock has lost about 60% of its value, a period of time when the Nasdaq Composite Index and S&P 500 have both more than doubled.

"Tan in as CEO at Intel was as good as stakeholders could have hoped for," said TD Cowen analysts, noting that he has "deep relationships" across the chip ecosystem that could draw customers to the company's contract manufacturing business.

Tan will take the helm next week — three months after Intel ousted CEO Pat Gelsinger. Tan had been brought into the board two years earlier to help turn the company around, but left due to disagreements over the size of the company's workforce and its culture. Skepticism about Intel's future has deepened in recent months amid reports that rivals, including Broadcom, were evaluating the chip design and marketing business, while TSMC has separately studied controlling some or all of its plants.

Analysts expect Tan to follow Gelsinger in keeping the chip design and manufacturing operations together — a plan that Tan hinted at in a letter to employees by vowing to make Intel a top foundry, an industry term for a contract chip manufacturer. Some analysts have said the foundry business may find it difficult to draw orders from chip designers wary of entrusting production to a rival.

But Tan, who oversaw more than a decade of strong growth at Intel supplier and chip-design software Cadence Design Systems, enjoys strong credibility as a "neutral party" that could help Intel overcome some of the challenges, analysts said.

Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein also said Tan's previous two-year tenure on the Intel board would aid his efforts.

That "should have given him a pretty good idea of where all the bodies are buried, and he should be much realistic in his evaluations and outlook than prior leadership (it was unbridled optimism proved to be Pat's undoing)," Rasgon said. 

Still, any turnaround is expected to take years, as hinted by Tan in his letter to employees.

Intel's market value has remained stuck below $100 billion for the first time in three decades after shares slumped 60% last year and its Gaudi AI chips have also missed sales targets. 

More analysts recommend investors "sell" the stock than "buy" it, with most having a "hold" rating, LSEG data shows. 

Rasgon said Tan "has a big job in front of him and a lot of wood to chop, though it does seem increasingly likely something will have to change giving investors something more concrete to play for (and if he fails, it was probably unfixable)."

(Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)