Moody’s senior analyst Ken Chan put Chartered Semiconductor’s (CHRT) speculative-grade Ba2 rating under review for a possible downgrade after Abu Dhabi’s nationalized investment firm, ATIC, proposed to buy the Singapore-based company for $1.8 billion.

The acquisition would transfer the majority holding from Singapore investment agency, Temasek (Moody’s rating Aaa) to ATIC (Abu Dhabi’s sovereign rating Aa2).

Analysts differed on how the acquisition would affect Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which had earlier united with ATIC to form Globalfoundries. Although Chartered and Globalfoundries will continue to operate as separate entities, increased scale of operations could result in cost synergies. Since AMD includes Globalfoundries in its consolidated results, the deal could shorten its road to profitability.

The deal would also open up Globalfoundries to several big customers, such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) and Texas Instruments (TXN). Its end market

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