Intel Sells a 51 Percent Stake in Altera for $4.46 Billion

In its first major move under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Intel is selling a 51 percent stake in Altera to Silver Lake for $4.46 billion.

“Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to sharpening our focus, lowering our expense structure and strengthening our balance sheet,” Mr. Tan said. “Altera continues to make progress repositioning its product portfolio to participate in the fastest growing and most profitable segments of the FPGA [field-programmable gate array] market. We look forward to partnering with Silver Lake upon closing of the transaction, as their industry expertise will help to accelerate Altera’s efforts and unlock additional economic value for Intel.”

Altera was founded in 1983 and became a public company in 1988. Intel acquired Altera in 2015 for $16.7 billion to gain a foothold in FPGAs, a critical component in cloud datacenters. It became the Programmable Solutions Group in Intel’s Data Center and AI (DCAI) business. But in 2024, the firm announced that it would spin off Altera as a separate, standalone business again. That happened in January, setting the state for this week’s split.

The deal between Intel and Silver Lake values Altera at $8.75 billion, and Intel will retain a 49 percent ownership stake. Altera is now operationally independent of Intel and will move forward building FPGAs to meet the needs of AI in datacenters. Intel says it will “participate in Altera’s future success while focusing on its core business.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2025, Intel says.