Intel reported its first quarter results on April 19, along with other surprise changes, including a massive layoff round for approximately 12,000 employees as well as a new job for CFO Stacy Smith.
Here are excerpts from some analyst reports issued after Intel’s (INTC) results came out:
Betsy Van Hees, Wedbush:
We believe the move for the CFO is likely that of grooming to be the potential successor to the CEO as while INTC promotes from within an important criteria for the CEO is hands on experience which the current CEO Brian Krzanich and prior CEO Paul Otellini who had an extensive sales and marketing background through key positions that he held INTC. Although Mr. Brian Krzanich has had many roles since he joined INTC in 1982, prior to his current role as CEO he was COO, and his responsibilities included leading an organization of more than 50,000 employees spanning Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel Custom Foundry, supply chain operations, the NAND Solutions group, human resources, information technology and Intel’s China strategy.
John Pitzer, Credit Suisse:
Our thesis remains intact as the Company begins to show operating leverage from prior investments, a scarcity value as most large cap tech companies have been choking investment in favor of financial engineering…and we continue to argue that Moore’s Law has been the cornerstone of Tech economics for 40 years and that INTC will be the Last-man-standing on Moore’s Law, leading to market share gains in Compute (including Mobile), as well as Foundry.
Ashok Kumar, Aegis Capital:
The restructuring focuses the Company’s resources on markets where it can generate the highest return…The adoption of [Windows 10] in second-half of 2016 could help stabilize corporate and enterprise demand. Intel could also get a LTE modem design win in Apple’s iPhone 7 in 2016.
Kevin Cassidy, Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.:
The company also announced CFO Stacy Smith will transition to a new role leading sales, manufacturing and operations once his successor is identified and in place. In our view, this new experience could groom Mr. Smith for the CEO position.
Craig Ellis, B. Riley & Co.
We believe Smith is well regarded by the investment community. Indeed, we have regarded him one of the sector’s better CFO. He’s got prior operating experience and we’re not surprised he’s moving back into a more operations‐centric. An internal and external search is initiated and we believe Krzanich and the Board will be open to an outsider.
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Matthew Ramsey, Canaccord Genuity:
While a new divisional reporting structure and recent management changes were topical, management importantly made the prudent decision to significantly cut PC-focused investments to protect earnings growth and cash flow in the face of persistent PC market declines approaching 10% Y/Y. While the near-term macro environment in international consumer and global enterprise spending will likely remain challenging, we believe Intel’s core growth engines of data center, IoT and memory are positioned for strong growth through 2016.
Timothy Arcuri, Cowen & Co.:
Amid a PC market that INTC finally seems to admit is never coming back and ‘down 10’ may be the new norm, the largest layoff in Intel’s history and a focus on growth segments (DCG, IoT, memory, and 5G wireless) is a huge step in the right direction…Ultimately though, INTC’s manufacturing lead is the life-blood of the company and this might finally open up more capacity for blossoming potential foundry partnerships – like AAPL – a development that would truly catapult INTC into the future.
