“It’s an area where (Intel) has had very little presence – the automotive market, and so this is a tremendous opportunity for them to get into a market that has significant growth opportunities,” said Betsy Van Hees, an analyst at Loop Capital Markets.
“Mobileye’s technology is very critical … The price seems fair,” she added.
The offer represents a premium of about 33 percent to Mobileye’s Friday closing price of $47.
Intel will integrate its automated driving group with Mobileye’s operations, with the combined entity being run by Mobileye Chairman Amnon Shashua from Israel.
Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said the acquisition was akin to merging the “eyes of the autonomous car with the intelligent brain that actually drives the car.”
Mobileye supplies cameras, chips and software for driver- assist systems – the building blocks for self-driving cars – to more than two dozen manufacturers.
The company was an early supplier of vision systems to Tesla, but the two companies had an acrimonious and public breakup last summer after the driver of a Tesla Model S was killed while operating the vehicle using Tesla’s Autopilot system.
Originally posted 2017-03-13 15:25:35.
