Intel buys Mobileye: $15.3 billion announced, $14.5 billion booked
On 21 August 2017 Intel completed its tender offer for Mobileye's shares, reaching 97.3 per cent after 84.4 per cent on 8 August. The announcement of 13 March had named $63.54 a share, an equity value of about $15.3 billion and an enterprise value of $14.7 billion. The annual report for 2017 says something else: total consideration of $14.5 billion, net of $366 million of cash that came with the company.
Why it matters
Three numbers for one deal, all from the buyer, all correct and all different: $15.3 billion as the announced equity value, $14.7 billion as the enterprise value on the same day, $14.5 billion as what finally passed through the balance sheet. The first is the one that circulated; the audit produced the third. The deal also put a price on a computer-vision company whose figures had been public for three years — an order of magnitude above anything previously paid for a laboratory.
The allocation in the annual report: goodwill $10,278 million, identified intangible assets $4,482 million, short-term investments and marketable securities $370 million, tangible assets $227 million, current liabilities $(69) million, deferred tax liabilities and other $(418) million, noncontrolling interest $(375) million, total $14,495 million. Intel's 2017 revenue includes $210 million from the Mobileye business, that is from not quite five months inside the buyer. What this record does not assert. The string 15.3 occurs once in the annual report and there means Intel's net income as a percentage of revenue, not a price; the $15.3 billion itself stands in the announcement document of 13 March and is an equity value rather than consideration paid. Intel's estimate that autonomous driving could reach a $70 billion market by 2030 is a company forecast, not a measurement, and this record does not endorse it.