Imagination Technologies rockets as Tsinghua buys 3% stake

Shares in Imagination Technologies rocketed on Monday after it revealed Chinese state-backed conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup International acquired a 3% stake in the London-listed chip designer.

Tsinghua Unigroup, which is part of Tsinghua University and owns stakes in Western Digital Corp and Powertech Technology Inc, tried and failed to acquire US-based Micron Technology last year.

Meanwhile, Apple confirmed back in March that it had held takeover talks with Imagination Technologies, which designs chips for the US tech giant.

However, Apple said it did not plan to make an offer for Imagination.

At 1140 BST, IMG shares were up 13% to 170.75p.

Atif Latif, director of trading at Guardian Stockbrokers, said this was welcome news for IMG, which has recently suffered a tough time due to weakness in the overall sector.

“With the miss on Apple numbers recently, IMG has continued to weaken as a read-across but we still continue to see absolute upside given the discounted valuation the market currently prices in,” he said.