AMD sells, rents back Austin, TX corporate headquarters
updated 04:05 pm EDT, Tue March 12, 2013
Move generates $164 million for company
Chipmaker AMD revealed on Tuesday that is selling and leasing back the Austin, TX campus to generate a quick $164 million in cash to prop up the company. The company expected in November that it would be able to sell the 58-acre site for between $150 and $200 million. AMD has done this twice before -- selling a Sunnyvale, CA site, as well as another site near Toronto, Ontario.
AMD is in a period of cost-cutting to stem the tide of red ink. The last year has seen AMD lay off 15 percent of its workforce, lose ex-CEO and then-CFO Thomas Seifert, and endure a loss of $157 million. The company is suffering from the "post-PC" era in personal computing, and the shift away from desktop computers to a more tablet-oriented ecosystem.
Analysts have been skeptical of AMD's chances, with one notably saying that AMD's decline is like "watching a slow-motion train wreck." The manufacturer may just need to buy some time -- it has revealed that it is producing parts for the PlayStation 4, is deploying the Temash system-on-a-chip, and has rolled out a new line of Radeon graphic processors in the last two months.
