>> this is a bad deal?
Yes, and that's glaringly obvious.
This is ATI's earnings for years '05 and going backwards.
Net Income Before Taxes 37.7 250.6 47.0 (42.2) (72.5) (53.0) 161.5
This fiscal year (ending 8-31-06), in the first 3 quarters ATI earned (before tax) $87m. And likely lost money in the 4th q.
I don't see how this acquisition will not subtract 20c-30c from AMD's EPS in '07.
Now possibly in future years, the ability to design and sell platforms will be the valuable result of this buy. But hey, that's '08 at the earliest. And even then, they'll not get $billions from that business. They don't even have the fab capacity for chipsets at this time.