It's not often that a company selling a vast slug of new shares is met with anything but a groan from existing investors, who see their slice of the pie shrink as a result. Yet the $20 billion stock offering just priced by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is a more interesting case than the usual dilution grumble, and it says a great deal about where this chip giant now finds itself.
Having initially floated the idea of selling $15 billion of stock, Intel upsized the offering on Aug. 11 to a hefty $20 billion, taking advantage of a recovering share price to bring in as much cash as it could. The proceeds are earmarked for the enormous capital demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) era, a race Intel has struggled to keep pace with.
