Applied Materials Raises Besi Stake to About 20% as Orders Jump 96.1%
Key Facts
Applied Materials signed an accelerated share purchase agreement on October 26 that will raise its stake in Besi to about 20% upon completion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Delivery of the shares remains conditional on the applicable waiting period expiring or being terminated under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The agreement adds to Applied’s 9% stake, which it bought in April 2025, making it Besi’s largest shareholder, according to Reuters. The deeper investment comes as Besi orders tied to hybrid bonding, data centers and AI-powered computing accelerate. Applied said it does not currently intend to increase its investment above about 20%, nor does it intend to seek representation on Besi’s board.
Applied previously described its initial investment in Besi as long-term, and said when it bought a 9% stake that it had done so through market transactions and did not plan to buy additional shares at the time. The new agreement comes alongside technical cooperation that began in 2020 and expanded on October 1, 2026, when Besi joined Applied’s EPIC Center as an innovation partner. The collaboration focuses on advanced packaging and chip interconnect technologies, as the industry moves to develop systems that combine computing and memory units more efficiently. Applied’s president of its Semiconductor Products Group said, "Hybrid bonding technology and next-generation interconnect architectures are becoming increasingly important enablers of energy-efficient AI computing performance." The investment therefore has a direct link to the expanding technical relationship between the companies, alongside Applied’s increased ownership in Besi.
The companies established a joint hybrid bonding center of excellence in Singapore in 2020, and Applied said the collaboration resulted in the Kinex system, which it described as the industry’s first integrated die-to-wafer hybrid bonding system. The scope of the partnership announced in October extended to new platforms for die-to-wafer, die-to-die and panel-level hybrid bonding. It also includes expanding thermocompression bonding and photonically enabled interconnect applications, supporting co-packaged optics and the scaling of AI systems. Besi joined the EPIC Center as part of this expansion, which the companies said aims to make compatible solutions available to their customers across different stages of advanced packaging. The collaboration thus brings together existing bonding systems and the development of additional integration platforms, with a stated focus on AI infrastructure applications.
On performance, Besi posted revenue of 283.4 million euros in the third quarter of 2026, up 113.6% from the same period a year earlier, while net income rose to 107.2 million euros, an increase of 323.7%. Revenue increased 13.4% sequentially, which the company attributed mainly to higher shipments for traditional computing applications linked to data centers and AI. Orders totaled 342.6 million euros, up 17.0% from the second quarter and 96.1% from the third quarter of 2025. Besi attributed the increase in orders mainly to stronger demand for hybrid bonding systems and data center applications, as well as traditional computing related to AI. Gross margin was 65.2%, down 0.5 percentage points from the previous quarter but up 3.0 percentage points from a year earlier; the company attributed the annual increase mainly to a more favorable product mix and price increases.
Besi expects fourth-quarter 2026 revenue to be stable or within a range of up or down 5% compared with third-quarter revenue of 283.4 million euros, with gross margin between 63% and 65%. The company said some customers are requesting delivery dates for third-quarter orders that align with their first-half 2027 capacity plans. This places the quarterly outlook in the context of delivery schedules and capacity plans requested by customers, alongside the order growth recorded in the third quarter. Applied, meanwhile, set November 12, 2026, for its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2026 results call, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The date follows the agreement, while delivery of the additional shares remains subject to the U.S. regulatory waiting period expiring or being terminated.