Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) are up 50 cents, or 1.9%, at $27.59 after the company this morning said the head of its analog chip business, Gregg Lowe, will depart and will be replaced by 17-year TI veteran Brian Crutcher.
Lowe is leaving to become CEO of Freescale Semiconductor (FSL), Freescale announced.
TI also said 28-year TI veteran Greg Delagi will lead the company’s embedded processing business, which will include TI’s “OMAP” applications processor business.
The response from the Street so far is fairly mild, with a positive view on Freescale and a mild negative bent towards TI.
Bernstein Research’s Stacy Rasgon, who has Outperform ratings on both stocks, writes this morning that the development the transition is “very positive” for Freescale, as Lowe “has led TI’s Analog business to a good deal of success in recent years, is well-regarded in the investment community, and is (to our mind) a very capable leader.”
“While not a great thing for Texas Instruments,” he writes, “the company has a deep management bench, and we do not expect this change to significantly impact their analog business.”
Nomura Equity Research’s Romit Shah, who has a Neutral rating on TI shares, writes that the departure of Lowe is “clearly a loss.”
Moreover, writes Shah, the folding of OMAP into Delagi’s responsibilities implies “that OMAP and connectivity will focus on segments outside of wireless moving forward. Brian Crutcher, who led the Embedded Processing business, will head up Analog.”
Update:�TI announced this afternoon that the company will host a�conference call�next Monday, June 11th, at 5 pm, Eastern time, to discuss its mid-quarter outlook.
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