Reuters reports that AMD has hired on J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries, to explore its options.
Sources claim that options AMD is currently investigation could include a potential sale as the company struggles to compete with Intel in both the desktop and mobile sectors. However unnamed sources claim that an outright sale is not the current priority. Instead, the company may focus on options like selling its portfolio of patents.
Currently the company is cutting costs and downsizing, and analysts fear that AMD may not find new markets for its technology in time to reverse the declining cash reserve. In this year alone, shares have fallen more than 60-percent, placing AMD's market value around $1.42 billion (Intel is $103 billion). The company also has $2 billion worth of long-term debt and capital lease obligations.
"AMD’s board and management believe that the strategy the company is currently pursuing to drive long-term growth by leveraging AMD’s highly-differentiated technology assets is the right approach to enhance shareholder value," the company said in an official release. "AMD is not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time."
After the Reuters exclusive report went live, AMD shares actually began to rise, jumping 5.03-percent to $2.35 in recent trading. In 2011 the company generated revenue of just over $6.5 billion, and as of late employs nearly 12,000 people.
Last month AMD said it would take an "ambidextrous" approach to its chips by combining ARM's 64-bit A-15 core architecture to its own x86-based Opteron processors for data center servers and cloud computing. The first ARM technology-based AMD Opteron processor is targeted for production in 2014 and will integrate the AMD SeaMicro Freedom supercompute fabric, the industry’s premier high-performance fabric.
