Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger pictured during the ‘Chips for health’ event at the Grischa Hotel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 24, 2022.
Eric Lalmand | Belga Mag | AFP | Getty Images
Intel cut its quarterly dividend by more than 65%, from 36.5 cents to 12.5 cents, the chipmaker announced Wednesday, weeks after the company implemented a wide-ranging set of cost cuts.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said on a call with analysts that the company’s board was cautious in weighing the first dividend cut since 2000. He added Intel intended to resume growing the dividend “over time.”
“The board and I continue to view the dividend as a critical component to the overall attractiveness of Intel,” he added.
Intel shares were largely flat in premarket trading Wednesday after the news.
Gelsinger insisted on the call that both he and the board remained committed to maintaining a competitive yield. Intel’s dividend yield is now 1.9%, based on Tuesday’s closing price, down significantly from its prior yield of 5.6%.
The dividend will be payable on June 1. “Prudent allocation of our owners’ capital is important to enable our IDM 2.0 strategy and sustain our momentum as we rebuild our execution engine,” Gelsinger said in a press release.
The company also reaffirmed its recently issued outlook for the first quarter of 2023. Intel guided to a 15 cent non-GAAP loss per share but didn’t provide full-year guidance, citing economic uncertainty.
Intel’s most recent results, a top- and bottom-line miss and a $664 million net loss for the fourth quarter of 2022, sent its share price sharply down. “No words can portray or explain the historic collapse of Intel,” Rosenblatt analyst Hans Mosesmann wrote after the earnings report.
Intel’s stock has fallen nearly 60% from its 2021 high, a reflection of both a challenging PC market and of company-specific issues, including a surplus of chips and underutilized factories.
The company said it aimed to deliver $3 billion in cost savings this year, in part through compensation cuts. Intel’s fourth-quarter loss was the chipmaker’s largest since 2017.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom, Jordan Novet and Kif Leswing contributed to this report.
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has raised $10 billion from investors that puts the company’s post-money valuation at $200 billion, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.
The valuation for Musk’s AI company is the latest example of skyrocketing valuations for companies that develop foundational AI models. Earlier this month, Anthropic raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation. OpenAI, the largest company in the industry, held a secondary share sale that valued it at $500 billion.
The fundraising comes weeks after Musk raised $10 billion in debt and equity at what was believed to be a roughly $150 billion valuation, according to Faber. Last December, xAI raised $6 billion to fund its artificial intelligence development.
However, xAI’s Grok service is widely believed to lag behind Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT models in terms of capabilities and number of users.
Musk said in May that he wants to buy a million AI chips, Faber said. Much of the proceeds of this round of funding could go to building data centers filled with Nvidia and AMD AI chips called GPUs that are needed to develop next-generation AI, as well as to hire expensive talent. The company is currently building a large cluster of AI computers in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Pattern Group, one of the leading resellers on Amazon, took the plunge into the public markets on Friday, and saw its stock slip in its Nasdaq debut.
Trading under the ticker “PTRN,” the stock opened at $13.50 after the company sold shares at $14 in its IPO, the middle of the expected range. Pattern’s offering raised $300 million, with half the proceeds going to investors, and valued the company at about $2.5 billion.
The Utah-based company was founded by husband and wife duo David Wright and Melanie Alder in 2013 as iServe Products before changing its name to Pattern in 2019. Pattern currently ranks as the No. 2 Amazon seller in the U.S., based on the number of customer reviews, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse.
The company describes itself as an “ecommerce accelerator” that helps more than 200 brands optimize their sales on online marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Target and TikTok Shop. It sells tens of thousands of products across categories ranging from health and wellness, consumer electronics, as well as beauty and personal care. Some of its brand partners include Nestle, Panasonic and Skechers.
The tech IPO market has roared back to life in recent months after an extended dry spell. Ticket reseller StubHub debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, though its stock dropped in its first two days of trading. Online lender Klarna and Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Wiklevoss, started trading last week. Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchangeBullish, design software company Figma and stablecoin issuer Circle have also recently hit the market.
In the second quarter, Pattern reported revenue growth of 39% from a year earlier to $598.2 million. The company recorded net income of $16.4 million in the second quarter, compared with $11.3 million a year earlier. Operating income came in at $30.1 million for the period versus $23.1 million in the same period last year.
The company competes with millions of merchants who hawk their wares on Amazon’s sprawling marketplace, where third-party vendors now account for more than half of all goods sold on the site. Pattern said 94% of its 2024 revenue came from consumer product sales on Amazon, with a “substantial majority” in the U.S.
Pattern isn’t the first Amazon seller to pursue an IPO. Pharmapacks, once the top U.S. Amazon seller, eyed going public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, before nixing those plans and filing for bankruptcy a year later.
Pattern is hitting the market at a time of major global trade uncertainty, a factor it acknowledged in its prospectus. President Donald Trump‘s tariff threats against trade partners have, for the past five months, sent shockwaves through markets and shaken businesses globally.
“There is significant uncertainty as to the potential actions of the U.S. government with respect to international trade policy and the impact of tariffs, particularly with respect to trade between the United States and China,” Pattern wrote in the filing.
Pattern said the tariffs and trade tensions between the U.S. and China could negatively impact demand for its products, or harm its ability “to sell brand partner products at prices consumers are willing to pay.”
CEO David Wright told CNBC in an interview on Friday that the company was trying to hold its offering “a few months ago,” but delayed because of the tariffs, which were first announced in April. Klarna and StubHub put their IPOs on hold after the market plummeted on Trump’s initial announcement.
But the company’s top risk, according to its prospectus, is its reliance on Amazon and what can happen if the ecommerce giant makes significant alterations.
Pattern said that should Amazon restrict its ability to sell products, terminate the relationship or see any big changes due to litigation or regulation, it “could adversely affect our continued growth, financial condition and results of operations.”
Wright said the Amazon challenge is unavoidable.
“No matter what you’re doing in this space, you’re going to be playing with them,” Wright said. As for Amazon suspending certain brands and sellers, “so long as you stay within the line, they’ve been a great partner for us,” he said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said price hikes on the newest iPhone models aren’t tied to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans.
“There’s no increase for tariffs in the prices to be totally clear,” Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer from Apple’s Fifth Avenue store location in New York City, as the latest iPhone model launched in stores worldwide.
Earlier this month, Apple increased the price of its iPhone 17 Pro model by $100, while maintaining the prices of its entry-level phones. It also introduced an Air model that replaced the Plus at steeper price point.
Many analysts had widely anticipated price hikes despite Cook’s attempts to dodge tariffs.
To circumvent the levies, Apple has pivoted its supply chain to import iPhones to the U.S. from lower tariff countries, such as India and Vietnam. Apple has historically produced a majority of its products in China.
Cook has also made public appearances with Trump as the company commits at least $600 billion toward bolstering U.S. manufacturing and supporting suppliers.
During the June quarter, Cook revealed that the company took an $800-million hit from costs tied to tariffs.
At the same time, Apple faces questions about its slow AI rollout, as well as rising competition in international markets such as China.
“We have AI everywhere in the phone,” Cook told CNBC on Friday. “We just don’t call it” that.