Intel has entered a deal to offload 51% of its stake in Altera, a specialised chipmaker focusing on programmable logic devices, to Silver Lake investment firm. Before it was owned by Intel, Altera and Intel worked together on several projects often using each other's technologies. It wasn't until 2015 when Intel acquired Altera for $16.7 billion. Since then, Altera has been seen as a division of Intel and one that's responsible for FPGA's or field programmable gate arrays with bespoke semiconductor solutions.
The trade values Altera at $8.75 billion, which seems like a bit of a step down from that 2015 price. Still, I wouldn't be shaking my head at approximately four billion dollars for half a company, and Intel isn't exactly giving it away. The company is making sure to retain the 49% share so it can continue to have a say in the development of the company.
