The US chipmaker announced that its newly formed global autonomous driving organization will be headquartered in Israel.
Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) has confirmed that it is acquiring Israeli vehicle safety and automation systems company Mobileye N.V. (NYSE:MBLY). Intel announcd that it will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash- an equity value of about $15.3 billion and an enterprise value of $14.7 billion. The deal is the biggest ever in the history of Israeli industry.
Intel said that the acquisition of the Jerusalem based company will poitioin it as a leading technology provider in the fast growing market for highly and fully autonomous vehicles. Intel estimated the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunities to be up to $70 billion by 2030.
Founded in 1999 Mobileye made its mission to reduce vehicle injuries and fatalities. After receiving an investment of $130 m. from Goldman Sachs in 2007 it listed on the new York Stock Exchange in 2014, Intel said that the acquisition will combine the best-in-class technologies from both companies, spanning connectivity, computer vision. data center. sensor fusion, high performance computing, localization and machine lerning and artificial intelligence. Together with partners and customers Intel and Mobileye expect to deliver driving solutions that will transform the automotive industry.
Intel added that the combined global autonomous driving organization which will consist of Mobileye and Intel's Automated Driving Group will be headquartered in Israel and led by Prof. Amnon Shashua, Mobileye's co-founder, chairmn and CTO.
The organization will support both companies' existing production programs and build upon relationships with automotive OEM, Tier-1 suppliers and semiconductors partners to develop advanced drivin assist, highly autonomous and fully asutonomous driving programs.
Intel SVP Doug Davis will oversee the combined organization's engagement across Intel's business groups and will report to Prof. Shashua after the transaction's closing.
Intel CEO Bian Krzanich said, "This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholdres, the automotive indutry and consumers. Intel provides critical foundational technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car's path and makimg real-time decisions. Mobileye brings best automotive grade computer visiin and stong momentum with automakers and supplier. Togethger we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost to automakers".
Mobileye co-founder, President and CEO Ziv Amiram said, "We espect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer. more flexible and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers. By pooling together our infrastructure and resources we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware tool, data centers and high performance computing platforms. Together we will provide an attractive value proposition for the automotive industry."
The company originally developed camera-based technology for warning about road hazards and preventing collisions, which formed the basis for systems for driverless cars. It currently has a market value of some $10.5 b. Its share price has gone up by some 30% since first reports of the deal with Intel broke. In the past year Mobileye has forged ties with several automotive and technology giants among them BMW, with the aim of achieving series production of automated vehicles by 2021.