35 AI Superstars According to Goldman Sachs

11. QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 100 

QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) develops and sells foundational technologies for the wireless industry. Bank of America recently penned an investor note on the company, maintaining a Buy rating on the stock. In the note, the analysts from the advisory stressed that a possible QUALCOMM takeover of Intel was intriguing but perhaps impractical. The note further detailed that the scale benefits were outweighed by regulatory and financial hurdles. If such a deal were to be contemplated, the note underlined, potential pros would include greater scale with $90 billion in pro-forma sales, leadership across mobile, PC and server central processing units, and opportunity to utilize Intel’s large fab footprint. However, the challenges overwhelm the potential benefits with a tough regulatory environment, the note highlighted.

Bank of America analysts questioned the merits of any such proposed transaction for QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM), citing China worries and Intel financials, given the large cash burn at the latter, including $53 billion in debt and large capex intensity required to support an extensive fab network. The note claimed that any announcement of the deal could create confusion given potential for headcount and roadmap disruptions and be a relative positive for Intel rivals.