One-stop-shop
Next up is Jim Norling, chairman of the board of directors at Chartered. Mr. Norling is keen to stress the duty of the board to evaluate all possible strategic options on behalf of shareholders. Not only have Morgan Stanley and Citigroup been appointed to ensure a fair sale value, but Deutsche Bank has been appointed as an independent advisor to individual shareholders.Very creditable we reckon,
It's interesting that AMD, despite still being a significant shareholder in Global Foundries, was absent from the announcement and we have to wonder what the outcome would've been, if such an emphasis on transparency (or at least communicating an intent to be transparent) was put on to ensuring AMD shareholder value, when it massively over-paid for ATI three years ago...
Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of ATIC, is keen to big-up Chartered and what a big commitment ATIC was making to it, while Chia Song Hwee, the CEO of Chartered, emphasises the progress made by Chartered in recent years and how many blue-chip customers it has.
The final speaker is big-hitter Doug Grose - the CEO of Global Foundries, who will head up the combined operation. He stresses how important it is to have a strong investor and how excited he is by the synergies between the two foundries.
He describes the mainstream offering as being complemented by a new leading-edge capability. Implying Chartered will provide the former and Global Foundries the latter, to provide a ‘one-stop-shop' for foundry customers.
Driven by some of the smartest guys from as far back as Jerry Sander's legendary AMD, plus maybe the pick of crop from the less-said-the-better times of Mr. Ruiz, the well funded Global Foundries seems to relentlessly accelerate from strength to strength. Perhaps now we can see why AMD no longer chooses to represent itself as the 'Smarter Choice'...
It certainly seems likely that, at least when it comes to semi-conductor manufacturing, Global Foundries is looking to be the Smarter Choice and we wonder what other plans for Future Fusion it has at ARM's length...
TSMC beware!
