Oddo BHF Backs Infineon's Reset as Winbond Deal Sharpens the Chipmaker's Focus
Published on 09/19/2026 at 08:20 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Infineon Technologies closed Friday's session at EUR 55.90, a gain of 2.4%, after Oddo BHF lifted its rating on the Munich chipmaker from "Neutral" to "Outperform." The French research house kept its price target unchanged at EUR 80, and the endorsement was enough to pull the stock out of a stretch of sustained weakness.
At the heart of the upgrade is valuation. Analyst Stephane Houri argued that this year's share-price decline has made the risk-reward equation far more appealing, and that the market has been slow to price in the company's strong prospects for the years ahead. The shares now sit roughly 38% below their 52-week high, a gap that opened up after the stock retreated sharply from its early-summer peak.
That backdrop helps explain why the upgrade landed with such force. Cyclical technology names routinely see temporary soft patches in the semiconductor cycle inflated into structural crises, and Infineon has spent months on the receiving end of exactly that treatment.
A Memory Exit Worth $1.12 Billion
The improved sentiment also coincides with concrete moves by management to tighten the company's strategic profile. On Wednesday, Infineon announced an agreement to sell a memory-chip portfolio to Taiwan's Winbond Electronics. The package covers NOR flash and F-RAM products serving automotive, industrial and infrastructure customers, and carries an enterprise value of USD 1.12 billion on a debt- and cash-free basis.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Infineon?
For Infineon, the rationale is twofold: a more focused product range, and fresh capital that can be redirected toward the group's core growth drivers. The business being divested contributed roughly EUR 350 million in revenue, a margin-thin slice of the portfolio that the company is now handing off. Closing is expected in the second half of 2027, subject to the customary regulatory approvals.
Morgan Stanley's Caution Still Hangs Over the Data-Center Story
Not everyone on the sell side shares Oddo BHF's enthusiasm. On September 8, Morgan Stanley cut its rating from "Overweight" to "Equal-Weight" and trimmed its target to EUR 65 from EUR 81, citing uncertainty around the data-center business. The US bank's analysts project EUR 2.8 billion in revenue from that segment in fiscal 2027, and they warned of a possible cyclical peak across the global semiconductor industry.
That more guarded view weighed on the stock in the interim. Even so, the structural case for Infineon rests less on short-lived memory cycles than on the broader push toward energy efficiency and electrification — a trend that keeps demand for advanced power electronics climbing as server farms consume ever more electricity. It is precisely in that niche that the group holds a leading technological position.
With the portfolio cleanup underway and the medium-term growth story intact, the balance of opinion has tilted back toward patience. Near-term volatility in semiconductors is unlikely to disappear, but a leaner asset base and durable end-market drivers give the bulls a sturdier foundation than the recent price action would suggest.
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