A decade ago, Renesas Electronics was under government control and bleeding cash. The Japanese chipmaker is now worth $35 billion and is targeting a market cap of around $100 billion by 2030, thanks to a series of overseas acquisitions.
Behind those deals is former Merrill Lynch banker Hidetoshi Shibata. Five years into his tenure as CEO, the 51-year-old sees new business in India and in AI-enabled microcontrollers that will help the company double annual revenue to a record $20 billion by the end of the decade. His ambition to triple the company’s valuation from ¥16 trillion ($99 billion) to ¥17 trillion comes as a new wave of AI enthusiasm is driving shares of the chipmaker behind Toyota, Honda and Nissan to their highest levels since the global financial crisis.
Renesas, which emerged from the chip arms of NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, was the world’s No. 3 chipmaker in terms of revenue in 2009, behind Intel and Samsung Electronics. But its fortunes faded along with its Japanese customers. Moreover, damage to a key manufacturing plant during Japan’s March 2011 earthquake forced automakers to limit their exposure to a single supplier, and Renesas quickly lost ground to rival NXP Semiconductors.
