Intel CEO Gelsinger's 'heart is in the right place': Analyst

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Intel (INTC) continues to fall behind its competitors in the chip sector with its stock down nearly 60% year-to-date in 2024.

Stifel Applied Technology Analyst Ruben Roy gives his thoughts on Intel's future, its place in the AI race, and CEO Patrick Gelsinger's leadership at the helm.

"I think that Pat overestimated the time with which it would take him to kind of complete a large overhaul," Roy tells Yahoo Finance, adding: "There's a lot of moving parts with the manufacturing business. We've seen pushouts in the timing at which Intel is going to potentially put some of this manufacturing capacity to work. I think there's still a lot of questions, like I mentioned, around the company's strategy on AI itself and how it's going to address this market that seems to be moving away from them."

KeyBanc Capital Markets equity research analyst John Vinh told Yahoo Finance in an interview in August that "time is running out" for Gelsinger as investors increasingly question his ability to drive growth.

00:00 Speaker A

And Ruben, I want to switch gears, talk about another name you cover and that that's Intel. I did see some headlines, Ruben, Intel was awarded up to $3 billion by the Biden administration under the CHIPS Act. Stock was higher today, but, you know, it's down, I'm just looking at it, Ruben, about 60% now this year. Um, what what is Intel's future? Does it remain as is, or no, we're going to have to see some meaningful dramatic changes there?

00:46 Ruben

Yeah, I think we've we've started to see some meaningful dramatic changes for the first time in its history. 50 plus year history, Intel is internally separating the way they operate their design business versus their manufacturing business. Longer term, are we going to see additional changes, maybe a separation of those two businesses? Unclear. But certainly, you know, the company, unfortunately has missed a lot of this initial investment into AI, AI infrastructure. They just have not been present. And, you know, with that in mind, uh, I think there's a lot of catching up to do, and there's got to be a lot of change and transformation within the company. It's great to see announcements like we saw this morning, um, extension of the CHIPS Act, um, money is going to Intel. I think, you know, having US-based manufacturing is a must, and I think Intel's positioned to benefit, given their historical leadership in manufacturing technologies and IP. Uh, yet, you know, there's more to come. We need to see more traction along those lines, not just with the US government and, you know, kind of these um, these deals that have been announced, but you know, sort of real traction with the companies that are running the leading edge of AI infrastructure buildout, whether that's Nvidia or AMD, or companies like Broadcom, Marvell, and others, Qualcomm. You know, those are the companies that we'd like to see kind of transition over to some manufacturing, away from, you know, dependence on overseas manufacturing, and and bring that in-house or onshore, I should say, uh, to Intel. We haven't seen that yet. We haven't seen that in volumes yet, and I think until we start to see that, you know, sort of the investment case for Intel is still sort of an unknown.

03:45 Speaker A

And let me ask you, Ruben, I mean, listen, when the stock gets hammered like Intel is, a question will be is is whether, you know, Pat Gelsinger is the right man for this job, the right CEO for this job. What's your opinion there?

04:13 Ruben

You know, I I think Pat's heart is in the right place. I think he came into a situation that required uh a lot of heavy lifting, and they've done a lot of heavy lifting. There's more to do. Uh, unfortunately, I think that Pat overestimated the time it with which it would take him to kind of complete a a large overhaul, you know, not to take anything away from, you know, the strategy of getting five manufacturing process nodes out into the marketplace in four years, which I think Intel is successfully uh, you know, doing. Uh, I think that's, you know, it's great, but there's a lot of work behind that. And so now we're going through a painful workforce reduction. There's a lot of moving parts with the manufacturing uh business. We've seen push outs in the timing at which uh Intel's going to potentially put some of this manufacturing capacity to work. I think there's still a lot of questions, like I mentioned, around the company's strategy on AI itself, and how it's going to address, you know, this market that seems to be moving away from them. So, to your question, Josh, is is Pat the right guy? Hard to say at this point, you know, we never like to see uh high profile members of the board leaving, like we saw a few weeks back. And so I think, you know, it's a question that uh we'll get an answer sooner rather than later as investors continue to grapple with, um, you know, how Intel's going to uh grapple with the with the, you know, complexities of challenges ahead over the next couple of years.

Watch the video above to hear Roy's take on the latest action from the chips sector.

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This post was written by Daniel A. Nelson