Intel sold control of Altera on 12 September 2025 and kept 49% of it. That retained half has sat on Intel's balance sheet at $3.2 billion through four consecutive quarter-ends, and $2.1 billion of the figure was booked as a gain the day the sale closed. An Altera IPO, which Reuters reports is being prepared, would move almost none of it.
Altera makes programmable chips — field-programmable gate arrays, whose logic the customer configures after manufacture. Intel bought it outright in a deal worth about $16.7 billion when signed, closing on 28 December 2015, ran it as a wholly owned subsidiary for nine years, then agreed in April 2025 to sell 51% of its stock to an affiliate of Silver Lake Partners. It contributed $428 million of revenue in its last full quarter inside Intel, and now buys wafers from Intel as a customer.
Reuters reported on 10 September, citing people familiar, that Altera is preparing to file confidentially within weeks for an IPO that could raise over $2 billion, underwritten by Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. Neither Altera nor Intel confirmed it; no registration statement exists.
Intel's report for the quarter ended 27 June 2026 carries it: "The carrying value of our non-marketable equity investment in Altera ... was $3.2 billion as of June 27, 2026 and December 27, 2025." The same $3.2 billion appears at 28 March 2026 and at 27 September 2025, the first balance-sheet date after the sale.
The mark-up already happened, and Intel printed the size of it
A flat book reads like a gain waiting for an IPO. Intel's gain table, above, says otherwise. When the sale of 51% to Silver Lake closed, Intel recognised a pre-tax gain of $5,553 million. Third line of that calculation is the retained stake, carried on at fair value, and Intel said what it contributed: "Approximately $2.1 billion of the gain resulted from the remeasurement of our non-marketable equity investment in Altera to its fair value at the transaction close date."
Work backwards. $3,246 million of carrying value minus $2.1 billion of remeasurement leaves roughly $1.1 billion of cost basis in the half Intel kept. Selling control nearly tripled the book value of the part Intel did not sell, in one quarter, in reported earnings.
Per point of Altera, Intel marked what it kept 28% below what it sold
Intel gave up 51 points of Altera for $4,266 million of proceeds net of cash sold and selling costs, plus $457 million deferred: $4,723m ÷ 51 = $92.6 million a point. It kept 49 points and valued them at $3,246 million: $3,246m ÷ 49 = $66.2 million a point, 28% lower.
R40 arithmetic on Intel's disclosed gain table
| Basis | Per point |
|---|---|
| 51 points sold, net proceeds | $92.6m |
| 51 points sold, gross cash | $103.9m |
| 49 points retained, fair value | $66.2m |
| Retained vs sold, net basis | 28% lower |
| Retained vs sold, gross basis | 36% lower |
Ours, computed from the table above. The net-proceeds line is $4,266 million plus $457 million of deferred consideration divided by 51; the gross-cash line uses the $4.8 billion received at close plus the $500 million deferred, also divided by 51. The retained line is the $3,246 million fair value divided by 49. Net and gross numerators are not built identically, which is why both appear: the net figure is stated after cash transferred with Altera and selling costs, the retained valuation is not.
One caveat runs the opposite way to the usual: the proceeds are net of cash transferred and selling costs, the retained stake is a clean valuation. On gross cash the gap widens to 36%. Intel says it set the fair value "in reference to Altera's equity value per the terms of the transaction agreement." Control blocks and locked-up minority stakes routinely price differently, though Intel has not said that is the reason.
A listing moves the book only through the shares Altera sells
Equity-method accounting is where most readings of this will go wrong. Carrying value starts at fair value on the day of deconsolidation, then moves with Intel's share of Altera's earnings, with distributions and with impairments. Altera's share price is not an input. A listed Altera at any market capitalisation leaves the $3.2 billion where it sits.
One route does move it. Should Altera sell new shares above Intel's basis per share, Intel picks up its share of that issuance — a gain sized by the offering price and the primary tranche, never by the market value of the whole company. Whether the deal is primary, secondary or both is what Reuters could not establish, and $2 billion of proceeds is not a valuation.
Flatness proves less than it looks. Intel discloses the stake to one decimal place in billions, so a move under roughly $50 million never shows, and its share of equity-method results sits inside one line covering every non-marketable holding it owns, $112 million across the half.
Altera is also most of Intel's outside foundry revenue
Related-party wafer revenue from Altera was $181 million against the $293 million Intel Foundry's outside customers paid: $181m ÷ $293m = 61.8%, the figure we could only call mostly Altera on 9 September. An S-1 must describe that supply agreement from Altera's side.
What settles it
Four things, none of which exists yet: the pre-money valuation, the primary-secondary split, whether Intel sells any of its own, and Intel's percentage the day after. Ownership has drifted once already — the 10-K reports a "49% interest" retained and "ownership interest was 48%" at 27 December 2025 — and a primary raise dilutes it again.
Losing significant influence would overturn all of this: a large enough sell-down, or a board seat surrendered, moves the stake to fair value through earnings and hands the book to the market price. At 48% and with no reported plan to sell, that is not the base case.
Intel booked a $12.5 billion loss in the June quarter marking its Escrowed Shares derivative, four times the whole Altera carrying value. Intel's earnings swing hard on marks. Altera is the asset that will not.
Everything here about Altera — the 2015 purchase price, the carrying values, the ownership percentages, the gain table and its $2.1 billion remeasurement note, the revenue Altera contributed before the sale, the related-party and external foundry revenue, and the Escrowed Shares mark — is from Intel's Forms 10-K for 2015 and 2025 and its Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended 27 September 2025, 28 March 2026 and 27 June 2026, read directly. The IPO preparations, underwriters and size are an unconfirmed Reuters report of 10 September 2026 sourced to people familiar. Every per-point figure, implied basis and percentage is ours.
