Intel has filed for an initial public offering of its self-driving technology business, Mobileye Global Inc., facing the worst market for new listings in the United States since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.
The company did not disclose terms of the planned share sale in its filing Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Mobileye will continue to be controlled by Intel after the IPO, according to the filing.
Intel expects the IPO to value Mobileye at up to $30 billion, less than initially expected, Bloomberg News reported this month.
If the listing goes ahead this year, it would be one of the biggest US deals of 2022. Currently, only two companies have raised $1 billion or more on the New York Stock Exchange since Jan. 1, compared with 45 in 2021. This year, the US share of IPOs has fallen to less than one-seventh of the global total from half in 2021.
Mobileye would also follow on the heels of Porsche AG’s market-challenging IPO in Frankfurt this week. The 9.4 billion euro ($9.2 billion) listing is the world’s second largest this year and the largest since stock markets began their volatility- and inflation-driven downward spiral in January.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is trying to capitalize on Jerusalem-based Mobileye, which it acquired in 2017 for $15 billion, with a partial spinoff of its stock. Mobileye makes chips for cameras and driver assistance features, and is seen as a prized asset as the auto industry races toward fully automated vehicles.
EyeQ Shipments
Now with about 3,100 employees, Mobileye has collected data from 8.6 billion miles on the road from eight test sites around the world, according to its filing. the company says its technology is leading the race to move the auto industry away from human drivers. It has shipped 117 million units of its EyeQ product.
Mobileye has been a particularly bright spot for Intel and has consistently grown faster than its parent. As of July, it had $774 million in cash and cash equivalents. In the 12 months ended Dec. 25, it had a net loss of $75 million on revenue of $1.39 billion.
The company said it plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to pay down debt and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
McCaskill, Huntsman
Mobileye said in its filing that its board will include Gelsinger as chairman, as well as former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, and Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah, as well as ambassador to the China which is now in Ford Motor Co. the board of
In its presentation, Mobileye noted that this year it acquired the mobility and transportation business Moovit from Intel. Moovit, another Israel-based business, had been acquired by Intel for $900 million in 2020.
A successful Mobileye listing could break the ice for a number of startups that have been waiting for the year’s market turmoil to die down before moving forward with IPOs.
More specifically, it could clear a growing logjam of chip-related assets waiting to hit the market. SoftBank Group Corp. it is also trying to sell shares in semiconductor designer Arm Ltd. early next year. Ampere Computing LLC, a startup that makes processors for data centers, is also planning an IPO.
The Mobileye offering is led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. Mobileye plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol MBLY.
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