Intel Corp and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management approved a plan to raise $30 billion in joint funds for the US chipmaker’s cutting-edge chip manufacturing factories in Arizona. It fuelled Intel’s ambition to increase production onshore without weighting it on the balance sheet.
Intel and Brookfield signed an agreement as a form of expansion, which means they are bound to explore financing options to fund the new manufacturing sites. However, the companies did not reveal the specific terms of the agreement.
Intel’s finance chief said to the analysts that the interest rate is between 4.4% and 8.5%, which is more than debt financing but cheaper than equity financing. Founders represent a cash-flow generating investment opportunity similar to equity investments in infrastructure such as data centers and fiber, giving investors long-term confidence in semiconductor demand.
