March 7 (Reuters) – Intel Corp said on Monday its Mobileye unit has confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering in the United States, which could value the chipmaker’s self-driving car unit at more than $50 billion.
Intel did not give more details about the offering, but has previously said it would receive the majority of the proceeds from the share sale. Some of those funds will be used to build more Intel chip plants, Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said in December. read more
The IPO landscape has changed significantly from when Intel announced in December to take Mobileye public, with a number of companies postponing their listings as global stock markets go through a turbulent time due to fears of a looming rate hike and geopolitical tensions.
Mobileye, an Israeli company that Intel bought for about $15.3 billion in 2017, uses a camera-based system with adaptive cruise control and lane change assistance in driverless cars.
Mobileye, which counts BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Honda and General Motors as its clients, has been a bright spot for Intel, which faces stiff competition in the chip-making segment from rivals Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O).
Technology powering driverless cars has been gaining traction even among legacy automakers including Ford Motor Co (F.N), General Motors Co (GM.N) and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) that have been investing on models with features such as driver-assist and self-driving systems.
