Intel said in a statement that it welcomed input to create shareholder value, and looked forward to engaging with Third Point toward that goal

Activist investor Dan Loeb has built a position in Intel Corp. and is urging the company to explore strategic alternatives, including a possible breakup of the chipmaker and the sale of assets.

Loeb’s fund, Third Point LLC, has “built a significant stake” in Intel and plans to push for changes, including potentially nominating directors, he said Tuesday in a letter to Intel Chairman Omar Ishrak. Loeb said the company has dramatically underperformed its peers in the past five years, including losing more than $60 billion in market value this year alone.

We cannot fathom how the boards who presided over Intel’s decline could have permitted management to fritter away the company’s leading market position while simultaneously rewarding them handsomely with extravagant compensation package, Loeb said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. Stakeholders will no longer tolerate such apparent abdications of duty.

Intel said in a statement that it welcomed input from all investors to create shareholder value, and looked forward to engaging with Third Point toward that goal. Loeb also said he expected the discussions to be productive, but reserved the right to nominate directors should he sense a “reluctance” to address his concerns.

Intel is in the midst of its worst crisis in at least a decade. The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the largest chipmaker for most of the past 30 years by combining the best designs with cutting-edge factories. Most other U.S. chip companies shut or sold plants and tapped other firms to make the components. Intel held out, arguing that doing both improved each side of its operation and created better semiconductors. That strategy is being questioned now as the company’s manufacturing capabilities fall behind the new industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Perhaps the letter will act as a push, but the company is (supposedly) currently engaged in exactly this sort of exercise, Stacy Rasgon, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, wrote in a note to clients. We already know Intel is in the process of considering alternatives in the wake of their manufacturing issues (we are supposed to get a plan in January) though so far recent public commentary has been more suggestive of ‘evolutionary’ approaches.