MGX Joins Silver Lake as Co-investor in Acquiring Altera

MGX, a leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) investment firm and strategic partner to Silver Lake, has announced that it has joined Silver Lake as a co-investor in the Silver Lake-led acquisition of a 51% stake in Altera.

Intel Corporation will retain the remaining 49% stake, underscoring shared confidence in Altera’s growth and reflecting a partnership that will bring deep semiconductor expertise and a shared vision to accelerate Altera’s global leadership in programmable semiconductor solutions.

Completion of the transaction establishes Altera as the world’s largest independent, pure-play Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) solutions provider, empowering the company to accelerate innovation for customers and partners by providing software tools, development kits, IP and design service resources used to build complete FPGA solutions.

Altera delivers a comprehensive, full-stack FPGA portfolio featuring industry-leading fabric, efficient performance, and easy-to-use, scalable software for customers and developers, MGX said.

With the Agilex family of products, Altera’s advanced FPGA solutions make AI more accessible by lowering entry costs while enhancing performance, reliability, and security. With flexible, resilient supply across leading nodes and foundry partners, Altera ensures customers can build with confidence anywhere in the world.

Uniquely Positioned

‘Silver Lake Chairman and managing partner Kenneth Hao said that Altera is uniquely positioned at the forefront of the FPGA industry and AI revolution. This investment reflects Silver Lake’s confidence in Altera’s technology leadership, its commitment to deliver for customers, and its significant growth potential.

Hao added: “We are proud to support CEO Raghib Hussain and the talented Altera team as they embark on this exciting next chapter, and we are delighted that MGX joins us as a partner.”

Omar Alismail, MGX Chief Investment Officer, Semiconductors and Infrastructure, said that Altera provides a foundational platform for next generation computing. This is an opportunity to scale a company of such significance into a true global leader for the AI era.

“In partnership with Silver Lake, we are accelerating next-generation technologies and ensuring Altera has the reach and innovation needed to power the digital future,” Alismail added.

According to Reuters report, though the value of MGX’s investment was not revealed, the transaction, which was completed on September 12, saw Silver Lake take majority ownership at an equity value of around $3.3 billion when factoring in debt financing.

It may be recalled that Intel agreed to sell 51% of Altera to Silver Lake in April this year in a transaction valuing the unit at $8.75 billion, which was less than half the $17 billion paid by Intel in 2015.

The California-headquartered Altera manufactures chips for use in sectors like data centers, telecoms, and robotics, and its offerings include semiconductors that can be reprogrammed after post-production.

This isn’t Silver Lake’s first tie-up with Emirati heavyweights, as it has previously invested alongside MGX in Khazna Data Centers, as well as with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to take NYSE-listed entertainment agency Endeavor private.