Plan to Buy Back Chip Facility Interest Sends Intel Stock (NASDAQ:INTC) Racing Up

While chip stock Intel (INTC) found itself the subject of a baffling April Fool’s joke earlier today, it did make a serious move that gave it a huge boost in the markets. Intel stepped in to buy back the 49% of Fab 34 in Ireland that it did not own already. Investors rejoiced and sent Intel shares racing up over 9% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.

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Intel had previously sold 49% of Fab 34 to Apollo Global Management (APO) for $11.2 billion back in 2024. Now, Intel will buy back the facility for the full price plus an extra $3 billion, sending the total up to $14.2 billion somewhere around two years later. This was considered a good sign for Intel, who was previously selling off just about everything it had that was not nailed down or actively being used.

Intel’s CFO, David Zinsner, noted “Our 2024 agreement was the right structure at the right time and provided Intel with meaningful flexibility, enabling us to accelerate critical initiatives. Today, we have a stronger balance sheet, improved financial discipline and an evolved business strategy.”

Who’s Buying What Now?

And that leads to the April Fool’s joke that caught a lot of attention until everyone checked their calendars and got vaguely annoyed. Earlier reports suggested that Intel was actually about to be bought out by AMD (AMD), a development which turned out to be as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Such a move would have been downright game-changing, of course. It also likely would have been met with an immediate outcry from Washington, whose regulators—laissez-faire as they may be these days—would likely object strenuously to the notion of one company controlling most of the x86 concept. Further reports put Intel as a “heritage performance division” within AMD, and these also proved false.

Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on seven Buys, 22 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 100.77% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $47.97 per share implies 0.25% upside potential.

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