Intel Fund Drops 12.4%

Intel Corp.’s $5.8-billion venture capital fund, one of the largest technology company investment portfolios, dropped 12.4% in its third quarter as shares of companies it owned plunged. The venture arm of Intel, the No. 1 computer chip maker, said the value of its investment portfolio dropped to $5.9 billion as of Sept. 30, from $7.5 billion at the end of its second quarter. Intel had $716 million in investment gains during its third quarter. The decline, almost twice as large as the fall in the Nasdaq composite index during the same period, didn’t affect Intel’s financial results for the quarter. It could, analysts said, prevent Intel from using investment gains to improve earnings, an increasingly common practice among companies such as Microsoft and Oracle with large investment portfolios.