Imagination Tech Shares Plunge as Apple Ends Deal With British Firm

[Zedcars]

It is unusual for Apple to make such a statement about its future plans since they're talking about a couple of years.
And I don't understand why they didn't buy the company since they have plenty of cash. If they're building a custom GPU from the ground up they're going to need a lot of expertise, since they are already stakeholder of Imagination why don't just buy more stocks and acquire the company with all its patents and employees?

Apple didn't make a statement about it; Imagination did.

You don't understand why Apple didn't buy them because you don't know all the facts.

 

[Carnegie]

I've been looking through Imagination Technologies' financial reports for recent years. Not pretty. There are reasons why its stock has spent most of the last 2 years trading between $1.50 and $3.00 after having peaked above $8 five years ago (using current exchange rates for those numbers).

It's been doing some major restructuring, but I have doubts whether that was going to be enough. And with this announcement regarding Apple's business, I have significant doubts whether the company can survive in its current form.

I can understand why some employees, beyond those who have been let go, might have been (or might still be) looking to jump ship. I can also understand why Apple - even if it wasn't otherwise looking to move on from being a major customer of Imagination Technologies, which it may well have been looking to do anyway - might be worried about continuing to rely on it.

Apple is not the only technology company that has owned a significant stake in Imagination Technologies. Intel used to own 15% of it, but it appears that Intel got rid of most (or all) of its stake a couple of years ago.

I'm far from an expert on his company, I don't follow it and only his morning bothered to look through its financials. But my guess is that, after its announcement regarding the notice Apple gave it, the only thing holding the stock price where it is is speculation that it might soon be bought by someone - and mostly for its IP.
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Wow... what a development. $2.5 billion down to $750 million in a matter of hours. I hope they packed fresh undies this morning.

Its market cap was already under $1 billion. So it was more like from $900 million or so down to $300 million or so in a matter of hours.

 

[vvswarup]

Apple might have told Imagination "we're moving to in-house designs" knowing that Imagination would freak out and leak the info to the public which in turn would make their stock plunge. Apple might then buy them out maybe a year or so hence for a very low price, especially if it looked like legal action was going to happen on the part of Imagination.

Unethical? Yes. Illegal? I have no idea, but this is a cross-border arrangement. But if Apple did buy Imagination in the end to build new GPUs "in-house," they would not have lied to Imagination at all. Seems odd that Apple would do something like this, but then again, a lot of things about this move seem odd.

Apple told Imagination that it's moving to in-house designs because that's what you do when you tell a supplier their products are no longer required. There's nothing sinister about that. Imagination revealed the news according to British securities law. If Apple wants to buy them out, Apple has to make an offer and Imagination doesn't have to sell.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Why would Intel give Apple an x86 license (like the one AMD has) for any price, let alone a price that makes sense given the cost difference you give?

They wont. But Apple can ask AMD to make them a custom x86 chip, put it on their SoC and re-brand it.

 

[HiRez]

Apple's graphics chips will be 1/2 as fast, 2x as expensive and thin as Pringles®. Good times to look forward to.

I'd like to know the basis of this comment, as Apple's ARM-based chip designs have been industry-leading (by a lot) in just about every way for years. I don't see why they couldn't do the same with GPUs.