Rumor: ATIC interested in taking over Chartered Semiconductor

Looks like Abu Dhabi is trying to broaden its foothold in the semiconductor market, after bailing out AMD to spin off the chip maker's fabs into Globalfoundries the state is reportedly trying to get a majority stake in Chartered Semiconductor. Abu Dhabi's investment vehicle ATIC is said to be in talks to acquire a 60 percent stake in Chartered Semiconductor:

According to The Business Times, Chartered has received a bid from ATIC to buy Temasek Holdings’ approximately 60% stake at between $2.40 and $2.60 a share. The $2.45 billion price tag represents a 19% premium to Chartered's market cap of about $2.05 billion, reports The Business Times.

For Chartered it is crucial to have a new investor willing to help the company. According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the semiconductor company has not started to invest into next-generation fabs, which means that in about a year or two from now Chartered will not be able to compete for designs that require 32nm or 28nm process technologies.