Truist Affirms Hold on Intel, $21 Price Target

Truist Securities analyst William Stein reiterated a Hold rating and $21 price target on Intel (NASDAQ: INTC).

“Best messaging from Intel we’ve heard in … ever; Earlier today, Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, delivered the opening keynote at Intel Vision 2025.

We believe this is his first public appearance since he joined as CEO two weeks ago.

While one speech doesn’t form the basis of an upgrade, we thought this was the most constructive message we’ve heard from Intel in … for as long as we’ve covered the company.

Here are the important points.Culture, culture, culture. Mr. Tan used the word “culture” perhaps 20 or more times in his presentation.

He discussed establishing a day-1 startup culture, and a culture of innovation. We discussed what we saw a problematic culture in our 12/2/2024 note following the prior CEO’s departure.

Starting with culture, rather than a list of products or manufacturing nodes is a breath of fresh air. Customers, customers. Mr. Tan spent a good bit of his presentation discussing customers.

He stressed that his focus is to solicit feedback from customers (who have graded Intel’s products as modestly D’s and F’s), to correct mistakes, and start to earn their trust back by under-promising and over-delivering.

This fresh air is starting to feel nice.Engineers. Mr. Tan also noted his internal focus will be on making Intel an engineeringfocused company again.

His priority is to recruit and retain the best engineers to empower growth and (again) create a culture of innovation empowerment. Now the air is starting to blow my hair around.”

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