GlobalFoundries to announce UMC deal on June 1, 2010?

We have received an invitation to visit GlobalFoundries press conference on Computex Taipei 2010, on June 1, 2010 at 10:00AM. Doug Gross, CEO of GlobalFoundries will be joined by Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, Chairman of ATIC [Advanced Technology Investment Company, technology investment arm of Abu Dhabi government] in order to "make important announcements on technology and capacity." At the same time, UMC's exec Chi Tung Liu floated an idea to list another billion shares on the stock market to raise more capital. With a stock currently going for $3.25, this would be a sub-five billion investment that would significantly increase the influence of GlobalFoundries in the Far East - a very important market which is pretty hard to crack on [our confidential sources told us that the acquisition of Chartered was one of Top 5 moves in semiconductor history].

However, aligning themselves with UMC brings one major concern - when GlobalFoundries equipped its team, we were told in confidence that "Customers" have significant concerns about Far East, most notably Taiwan and South East China, mostly due to well-known problem with… earthquakes.