Hedge fund manager Tom Hayes has taken a clear view on Mobileye , which on Thursday saw its share price plunge 25%, in turning his nose up at the prospect of investing in the Intel spinoff by stating that he refuses to go “dumpster diving.”
Hayes, who founded New York investment fund Great Hill Capital in 2015, entirely disregarded the possibility of buying shares in Mobileye
MBLY,
as he described the self-driving vehicle company as the “poster child of the last hype cycle before AI.”
“I’m not going to go dumpster diving on this one. It’s too speculative,” the New York money manager said on his ‘Hedge Fund Tips with Tom Hayes’ podcast on Thursday.
Hayes explained that in his view, shares in Mobileye, which was spun out from Intel in 2022, are simply too expensive. “I’m not paying 15 times sales for a business that’s been around for five minutes,” Hayes said.
“Right out of the gate, this business hasn’t been operating long enough for me to get interested,” Hayes said.
Hayes, in turn, scoffed at Mobileye’s current valuation, which he suggested has been bolstered by excitement around the ‘Internet of Things,’ as he declared that the “Mobileye dream… is not happening.”
He instead argued that it is better to simply own stock in Intel
INTC,
which continued to own an 88% stake in the Israeli technology company as of September 2023.
Shares in Mobileye crashed 25% on Thursday after the Jerusalem-headquartered company said it expects its first quarter revenues to be 50% lower than the $458 million worth of sales it posted in the first quarter of last year, due to its customers having excess inventory.
“As supply chain concerns have eased, we expect that our customers will use the vast majority of this excess inventory in the first quarter of the year,” Mobileye said.
