INTC Stock Rally: Analysts See Further Upside, Foundry Deals After Buyback Of Ireland Fab Stake

• UBS said if Intel similarly buys back Brookfield’s stake in its Arizona fabs, it would be a much bigger catalyst for the company.
• Intel has spent the last few years trying to turn around its foundry business.
• UBS also said the deal signals that Intel has better visibility on foundry customer wins.

Analysts have turned materially positive on Intel after it purchased an investor’s stake in its Ireland fabrication facility last week, and say the move signals not only financial strength but also greater business visibility for its foundry operations.

On Wednesday, Intel agreed to buy Apollo Global Management’s 49% stake in the companies’ Fab 34 joint venture chip manufacturing plant in Ireland for $14.2 billion.

Fab 34 produces chips using Intel 4 and Intel 3 process technologies, with Apollo having led an $11.2 billion investment in the facility in 2024.

Intel said it plans to finance the acquisition using a mix of existing cash and roughly $6.5 billion in newly issued debt, adding that the deal is expected to be accretive to earnings per share and improve its credit profile starting in 2027.

“Ultimately, the direction of travel here is very positive and we would view an exit from the Brookfield SCIP as an even more important catalyst to get more positive on the shares,” UBS said in an investor note, referring to Brookfield’s stakes in two of Intel’s fabs in Arizona.

The Fab 52 and Fab 62 are next-gen fabs being built to support Intel’s advanced nodes, such as 18A.

UBS said the deal could signal that Intel has “a good line of sight over potential foundry wins.” Intel has spent the past few years working to turn around its foundry business, including bringing in external capital partners to fund expansion and opening its manufacturing to third-party chip designers.

Intel shares gained 5% on Thursday. The stock gained nearly 17% last week, making it the best weekly move in over four months. The benchmark S&P 500 gained 3.6% in the past week.

D.A. Davidson said the Ireland fab deal “bodes well for the INTC turnaround story while significantly strengthening the balance sheet," adding that it should drive upward revisions to estimates.

Retail’s View On INTC

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for INTC has been climbing since the start of last week and was ‘bullish’ early Monday.

“Fab in Ireland was bought back probably because of some big client order news soon and everyone knows what will happen once (the) Taiwan issue comes up,” a user speculated. “Lots of politics going on here and Intel will play a very major role. I am accumulating slowly and steadily.”

Another bullish user wrote: “$INTC regardless of the day to day price action, it's still a 2 trillion dollar stock in the making.”

Intel’s Moves

Over the past year, Intel has undergone massive reorganization and downsizing under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. The changes were complemented by the U.S. government picking up a 10% stake in the company in August, surging demand for AI data center chips, including those made by Intel, and a recent partnership with Nvidia.

More recently, Intel unveiled its latest PC processors, the Core Ultra Series 3, at CES 2026. They are built using Intel’s 18A process – roughly equivalent to a 2-nanometer-class node – which the company called the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process ever developed and produced in the U.S.

Intel shares are up 36.5% year-to-date.

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