How a Global Foundry Is Losing Money in a Chip Boom
Companies should be raking in profits. That’s never going to happen if you lack the pricing power and factory utilization needed to make the most of the sunny weather.
Where are the profits?
Photographer: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/BloombergThe current state of the global semiconductor market has been alternatively labeled by auto makers, politicians and executives as a shortage, a crisis, and even a squeeze. For the companies at the center of it all, the only word to describe what we’re seeing is a chip boom. It’s inexplicable, then, that any company which ought to be bathing in profits could still be losing money.
Enter GlobalFoundries Inc. The New York-based company is the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker and has just filed for a Nasdaq listing. With shares of leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. up more than double since the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and nearest rival United Microelectronics Corp. rising almost five fold, investors ought to be clamoring over GlobalFoundries’ $1 billion offering.