After nearly a year’s wait, Mobileye is on the highway to Wall Street.
Intel Corp.
INTC,
-owned Mobileye Global Inc. launched its drive to an initial public offering in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday, leaving the size of the offering blank for now on what is expected to be one of the largest IPOs of the year.
Intel executives were targeting mid-2022 as of late last year, and filed confidentially with the SEC in March for the IPO of its self-driving-car unit, but the IPO market has been dry amid a decline for stocks, especially those that went public in a 2021 rush.
Mobileye plans to trade Class A shares of common stock on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol “MBLY,” the same symbol the company had before Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion in cash. While selling shares in Mobileye, Intel will retain official control of the company, keeping class B shares that carry 10 votes apiece while selling class A shares that have only one vote.
Mobileye also plans to have four Intel-affiliated members on its board, including Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger serving as chairman of Mobileye’s board.
Intel will also get paid from the offering: Mobileye issued Intel a dividend note for $3.5 billion, and expects to pay that off with proceeds from the sale, according to the filing; there was an initial payment of $336 million, leaving more than $3 billion still owed to Intel. Earlier reporting suggested Intel would seek a $30 billion valuation for Mobileye in the IPO, though the initial filing Friday did not include targeted prices for the shares.
The filing did include financial information, though: Mobileye reported revenue of $1.39 billion in 2021, well ahead of Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
which reported fiscal-year revenue of $566 million in auto chip sales in January. Mobileye reported a loss of $70 million last year, compared with a $196 million loss in 2020 and $328 million in 2019. Revenue in the first half of this year hit $854 million, growing 41% in the second quarter from the year before.
The filing lists a whopping 24 underwriters for the deal including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Evercore ISI, Barclays, Citigroup, and B of A Securities.
Shares of Intel were up 0.5% after hours Friday, following a 2.3% decline in the regular session to close at $25.77.
