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EX-31.2 - CERTIFICATION OF PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL OFFICER PURSUANT TO RULE 13A-14 - Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd.dex312.htm
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EX-31.1 - CERTIFICATION OF PRINCIPAL EXECUTIVE OFFICER PURSUANT TO RULE 13A-14 - Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd.dex311.htm
EX-32.2 - CERTIFICATION OF PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL OFFICER PURSUANT TO 18 U.S.C. SECTION 1350 - Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd.dex322.htm
Table of Contents

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, DC 20549

 

 

FORM 10-Q

 

 

(MARK ONE)

x QUARTERLY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the quarterly period ended August 1, 2010

OR

 

¨ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from              to             

Commission File Number: 333-137664

 

 

Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

 

 

 

Singapore   N/A

(State or Other Jurisdiction of

Incorporation or Organization)

 

(I.R.S. Employer

Identification No.)

1 Yishun Avenue 7

Singapore 768923

  N/A
(Address of Principal Executive Offices)   (Zip Code)

(65) 6755-7888

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

 

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    YES  ¨    NO  x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    YES  ¨    NO  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

 

Large accelerated filer   ¨    Accelerated filer   ¨
Non-accelerated filer   x  (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)    Smaller reporting company   ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    YES  ¨    NO  x

As of August 27, 2010 there were 226,460,262 shares of our ordinary shares, no par value per share, outstanding.

 

 

 


Table of Contents

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q

For the Quarterly Period Ended August 1, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

     Page

PART I - FINANCIAL INFORMATION

   3

Item 1. Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements - Unaudited

   3

Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

   20

Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

   27

Item 4. Controls and Procedures

   28

PART II - OTHER INFORMATION

   29

Item 1. Legal Proceedings

   29

Item 1A. Risk Factors

   29

Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

   48

Item 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities

   48

Item 6. Exhibits

   49

SIGNATURES

   51

 

2


Table of Contents

PART I—FINANCIAL INFORMATION

 

Item 1. Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements—Unaudited

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS—UNAUDITED

(in millions, except share amounts)

 

     November 1,
2009 (1)
    August 1,
2010
 

ASSETS

    

Current assets:

    

Cash and cash equivalents

   $ 472      $ 367   

Trade accounts receivable, net

     186        279   

Inventory

     162        185   

Other current assets

     44        42   
                

Total current assets

     864        873   

Property, plant and equipment, net

     264        266   

Goodwill

     171        173   

Intangible assets, net

     647        592   

Other long-term assets

     24        16   
                

Total assets

   $ 1,970      $ 1,920   
                

LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDER’S EQUITY

    

Current liabilities:

    

Accounts payable

   $ 154      $ 172   

Employee compensation and benefits

     55        69   

Accrued interest

     25        5   

Capital lease obligations - current

     2        2   

Due to Parent

     221        243   

Other current liabilities

     33        37   

Current portion of long-term debt

     364        —     
                

Total current liabilities

     854        528   

Long-term liabilities:

    

Long-term debt

     230        230   

Capital lease obligations - non-current

     3        4   

Other long-term liabilities

     64        68   
                

Total liabilities

     1,151        830   
                

Commitments and contingencies (Note 12)

    

Shareholder’s equity:

    

Ordinary shares, no par value; 226,460,262 shares issued and outstanding on November 1, 2009 and August 1, 2010, respectively

     1,172        1,192   

Accumulated deficit

     (356     (105

Accumulated other comprehensive income

     3        3   
                

Total shareholder’s equity

     819        1,090   
                

Total liabilities and shareholder’s equity

   $ 1,970      $ 1,920   
                

 

(1) Amounts as of November 1, 2009 have been derived from audited financial statements as of that date.

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements.

 

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Table of Contents

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS—UNAUDITED

(in millions)

 

     Quarter Ended     Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Net revenue

   $ 363      $ 550      $ 1,056      $ 1,521   

Cost of products sold:

        

Cost of products sold

     205        271        619        786   

Amortization of intangible assets

     15        15        44        44   

Restructuring charges

     2        1        11        1   
                                

Total cost of products sold

     222        287        674        831   
                                

Gross margin

     141        263        382        690   

Research and development

     59        71        180        205   

Selling, general and administrative

     40        51        122        145   

Amortization of intangible assets

     5        5        16        16   

Restructuring charges

     13        1        21        3   
                                

Total operating expenses

     117        128        339        369   
                                

Income from operations

     24        135        43        321   

Interest expense

     (20     (8     (58     (27

Gain (loss) on extinguishment of debt

     —          —          1        (24

Other income (expense), net

     4        —          —          (2
                                

Income (loss) before income taxes

     8        127        (14     268   

Provision for income taxes

     6        4        9        17   
                                

Net income (loss)

   $ 2      $ 123      $ (23   $ 251   
                                

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS—UNAUDITED

(in millions)

 

     Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Cash flows from operating activities:

    

Net income (loss)

   $ (23   $ 251   

Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities:

    

Depreciation and amortization

     120        119   

Amortization of debt issuance costs

     3        1   

(Gain) loss on extinguishment of debt

     (1     8   

Loss on disposal of property, plant and equipment

     1        1   

Non-cash portion of restructuring charges

     1        —     

Impairment of investment

     2        —     

Share-based compensation

     7        18   

Excess tax benefits from share-based compensation

     —          (1

Changes in assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions:

    

Trade accounts receivable

     8        (90

Inventory

     36        (22

Accounts payable

     (25     4   

Employee compensation and benefits

     (27     14   

Other current assets and current liabilities

     (31     —     

Other long-term assets and long-term liabilities

     16        12   
                

Net cash provided by operating activities

     87        315   
                

Cash flows from investing activities:

    

Purchase of property, plant and equipment

     (37     (49

Acquisitions and investments, net of cash acquired

     (7     (9

Proceeds from disposal of property, plant and equipment

     —          2   

Proceeds from sale of discontinued operations

     2        —     
                

Net cash used in investing activities

     (42     (56
                

Cash flows from financing activities:

    

Debt repayments

     (2     (364

Payment of capital lease obligations

     (1     (1

Excess tax benefits from share-based compensation

     —          1   

Cash settlement of equity awards

     (1     —     
                

Net cash used in financing activities

     (4     (364
                

Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents

     41        (105

Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of period

     213        472   
                

Cash and cash equivalents at end of period

   $ 254      $ 367   
                

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

1. Overview and Basis of Presentation

Overview

We are a designer, developer and global supplier of analog semiconductor devices with a focus on III-V based products. We offer products in four primary target markets: wireless communications, wired infrastructure, industrial and automotive electronics, and consumer and computing peripherals. Applications for our products in these target markets include cellular phones, consumer appliances, data networking and telecommunications equipment, enterprise storage and servers, factory automation, displays, optical mice and printers.

Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd., or the Company or Avago, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avago Technologies Holding Pte. Ltd., or Holding, which is wholly owned by Avago Technologies Limited, or Parent.

Basis of Presentation

Fiscal Periods. We operate on a 52/53-week fiscal year ending on the Sunday closest to October 31. Our first quarter of fiscal year 2010 ended on January 31, 2010, the second quarter ended on May 2, 2010, the third quarter ended on August 1, 2010 and the fourth quarter will end on October 31, 2010.

Information. The unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd., and all of our wholly-owned subsidiaries, and are prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, or GAAP. Intercompany transactions and balances have been eliminated in consolidation.

Interim information presented in the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements has been prepared by management and, in the opinion of management, includes all adjustments of a normal recurring nature that are necessary for the fair statement of the financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods shown, and is in accordance with GAAP. These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes for the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, or fiscal year 2009, included in Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, on December 15, 2009.

The operating results for the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending October 31, 2010, or fiscal year 2010, or for any other future period. The balance sheet as of November 1, 2009 is derived from the audited financial statements as of that date.

Use of estimates. The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from those estimates, and such differences could affect the results of operations reported in future periods.

Concentrations of credit risk and significant customers. Our cash, cash equivalents and accounts receivable are potentially subject to concentration of credit risk. Cash and cash equivalents are placed with financial institutions that management believes are of high credit quality. Our accounts receivable are derived from revenue earned from customers located in the U.S. and internationally. Credit risk with respect to accounts receivable is generally diversified due to the large number of entities comprising our customer base and their dispersion across many different industries and geographies. We perform ongoing credit evaluations of our customers’ financial conditions, and require collateral, such as letters of credit and bank guarantees, in certain circumstances.

We sell our products through our direct sales force and distributors. One customer accounted for 11% of our net accounts receivable balance at November 1, 2009. One customer accounted for 12% of our net accounts receivable balance at August 1, 2010. For the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010, no single customer and one customer represented 10% or more of net revenue, respectively. During both the quarter and nine months ended August 2, 2009, no single customer represented 10% or more of net revenue.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

Concentration of other risks. The semiconductor industry is characterized by rapid technological change, competitive pricing pressures and cyclical market patterns. Our financial results are affected by a wide variety of factors, including general economic conditions worldwide, economic conditions specific to the semiconductor industry, the timely implementation of new manufacturing technologies, the ability to safeguard patents and intellectual property in a rapidly evolving market and reliance on assembly and test subcontractors, third-party wafer fabricators and independent distributors. In addition, the semiconductor market has historically been cyclical and subject to significant economic downturns at various times. We are exposed to the risk of obsolescence of our inventory depending on the mix of future business.

Net income (loss) per share. Because we only have one shareholder (Avago Technologies Holding Pte. Ltd.) and no common shares trading in a public market, information on earnings per share is not meaningful and has not been presented.

Warranty. We accrue for the estimated costs of product warranties at the time revenue is recognized. Product warranty costs are estimated based upon our historical experience and specific identification of the products’ requirements, which may fluctuate based on product mix. Additionally, we accrue for warranty costs associated with unanticipated product quality issues if a loss is probable and can be reasonably estimated.

The following table summarizes the changes in our warranty accrual (in millions):

 

Balance as of November 2, 2008 - included in other current liabilities

   $ 1   

Charged to cost of products sold

     3   

Utilized

     (2
        

Balance as of August 2, 2009—included in other current liabilities

   $ 2   
        

Balance as of November 1, 2009—included in other current liabilities

   $ 7   

Charged to cost of products sold

     11   

Warranty accrual assumed during the period in connection with an acquisition

     1   

Utilized

     (1
        

Balance as of August 1, 2010—included in other current liabilities

   $ 18   
        

During the first nine months of fiscal year 2010, we recorded warranty charges of $11 million based on one specific quality issue. See Note 12. “Commitments and Contingencies” for further details.

Recently Adopted Accounting Guidance

In the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted the guidance issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, on fair value measurements and disclosures. The guidance requires new disclosures about transfers in and out of Levels 1 and 2 fair value measurements, fair value measurements disclosures for each class of assets and liabilities, and disclosures about the valuation techniques and inputs used to measure fair value for both recurring and non-recurring fair value measurements for Level 2 and Level 3 fair value measurements. Other than requiring additional disclosures in our financial statements, the adoption of this guidance did not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

In the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted the guidance issued by the FASB that amends the disclosure requirements relating to subsequent events. The amendment includes definition of an SEC filer, requires an SEC filer to evaluate subsequent events through the date the financial statements are issued, and removes the requirement for an SEC filer to disclose the date through which subsequent events have been evaluated. This guidance was effective upon issuance. The adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on our results of operations, financial position and financial statement disclosures.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted the guidance issued by the FASB on business combinations, which significantly changes current practices regarding business combinations. Among the more significant changes, the guidance expands the definition of a business and a business combination; requires the acquirer to recognize the assets acquired, liabilities assumed and noncontrolling interests (including goodwill), measured at fair value at the acquisition date; requires acquisition-related expenses and restructuring costs to be recognized separately from the business combination; requires assets acquired and liabilities assumed to be recognized at their acquisition-date fair values with subsequent changes recognized in earnings; and requires in-process research and development to be capitalized at fair value as an indefinite-lived intangible asset. The adoption of this guidance changes our accounting treatment for business combinations on a prospective basis and the nature and magnitude of the specific impact depends upon the nature, terms and size of the acquisitions consummated after the date of our adoption of this guidance. See Note 3. “Acquisition” for further details.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted the guidance issued by the FASB on noncontrolling interests in consolidated financial statements. This guidance changes the accounting and reporting for minority interests, reporting them as equity separate from the parent entity’s equity, as well as requiring expanded disclosures. The adoption of this guidance did not have any impact on our results of operations and financial position.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted the guidance issued by the FASB for determination of the useful life of intangible assets. This guidance amends the factors that should be considered in developing renewal or extension assumptions used to determine the useful life of a recognized intangible asset under authoritative accounting guidance for goodwill and other intangible assets. Transactions involving intangible assets may be affected by this guidance. See Note 4. “Goodwill and Intangible Assets.”

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, we adopted new guidance issued by the FASB that specifies the way in which fair value measurements should be made for non-financial assets and non-financial liabilities that are not measured and recorded at fair value on a recurring basis, and specifies additional disclosures related to these fair value measurements. The adoption of this new guidance did not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

Recent Accounting Guidance Not Yet Adopted

In March 2010, the FASB issued new guidance on the milestone method of revenue recognition. The new guidance recognizes the milestone method as an acceptable revenue recognition method for substantive milestones in research or development transactions. A milestone is substantive when the consideration earned from achievement of the milestone is commensurate with either (a) the vendor’s performance to achieve the milestone or (b) the enhancement of the value of the delivered item(s) as a result of a specific outcome resulting from the vendor’s performance to achieve the milestone and the consideration earned from the achievement of a milestone relates solely to past performance and is reasonable relative to all of the deliverables and payment terms (including other potential milestone consideration) within the arrangement. This new guidance will be effective for our fiscal year ending October 30, 2011, or fiscal year 2011, and its interim periods, with early adoption permitted. The guidance may be applied retrospectively to all arrangements or prospectively to milestones achieved after the effective date. We are currently assessing the impact that this guidance will have on our results of operations and financial position.

In February 2010, the FASB issued updated guidance which amends the requirements for evaluating whether a decision maker or service provider has a variable interest to clarify that a quantitative approach should not be the sole consideration in assessing the criteria. It also clarifies that related parties should be considered in applying all of the decision maker and service provider criteria. This is in addition to the authoritative guidance the FASB issued in June 2009 that applies to determining whether an entity is a variable interest entity and requiring an enterprise to perform an analysis to determine whether the enterprise’s variable interest or interests give it a controlling financial interest in a variable interest entity. This new guidance eliminates the exceptions to consolidating qualifying special-purpose entities, contains new criteria for determining the primary beneficiary, and increases the frequency of required reassessments to determine whether a company is the primary beneficiary of a variable interest entity. The guidance also contains a new requirement that any term, transaction, or arrangement that does not have a substantive effect on an entity’s status as a variable interest entity, a company’s power over a variable interest entity, or a company’s obligation to absorb losses or its right to receive benefits of an entity must be disregarded in applying the existing provisions. The elimination of the qualifying special-purpose entity concept and its consolidation exceptions means more entities will be subject to consolidation assessments and reassessments. This guidance will be effective for our fiscal year 2011. We believe the adoption of this new guidance will not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

In January 2010, the FASB issued updated guidance related to fair value measurements and disclosures, which requires separate disclosures about purchases, sales, issuances, and settlements relating to Level 3 fair value measurements (see Note 6. “Fair Value Measurements” for further discussion of fair value measurements). This guidance will be effective for our fiscal year ending October 28, 2012, and its interim periods. Other than requiring additional disclosures in our financial statements, we believe the adoption of this guidance will not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

In October 2009, the FASB issued guidance on revenue recognition that addresses how to determine whether an arrangement involving multiple deliverables contains more than one unit of accounting and how the arrangement consideration should be allocated among the separate units of accounting. This guidance will be effective for our fiscal year 2011 with early adoption permitted. The guidance may be applied retrospectively or prospectively for new or materially modified arrangements. We believe the adoption of this guidance will not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

In October 2009, the FASB issued guidance that modifies the scope of the software revenue recognition guidance to exclude (a) non-software components of tangible products and (b) software components of tangible products that are sold, licensed or leased with tangible products when the software components and non-software components of the tangible product function together to deliver the tangible product’s essential functionality. This guidance will be effective for our fiscal year 2011 with early adoption permitted. The guidance may be applied retrospectively or prospectively for new or materially modified arrangements. We believe the adoption of this new guidance will not have a significant impact on our results of operations and financial position.

In December 2008, the FASB issued guidance on an employer’s disclosures about plan assets of a defined benefit pension or other postretirement plan. This guidance requires disclosures surrounding how investment allocation decisions are made, including the factors that are pertinent to an understanding of investment policies and strategies. Additional disclosures include (a) the major categories of plan assets, (b) the inputs and valuation techniques used to measure the fair value of plan assets, (c) the effect of fair value measurements using significant unobservable inputs (Level 3) on changes in plan assets for the period and (d) the significant concentrations of risk within plan assets. This guidance does not change the accounting treatment for postretirement benefit plans. This guidance will be effective for us in fiscal year 2010. The adoption of this guidance will change our disclosure about pension plans beginning with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2010.

2. Inventory

Inventory consists of the following (in millions):

 

     November 1,
2009
   August 1,
2010

Finished goods

   $ 70    $ 65

Work-in-process

     70      90

Raw materials

     22      30
             

Total inventory

   $ 162    $ 185
             

During the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we recorded write-downs to inventories of $21 million, associated with reduced demand assumptions compared to $10 million during the nine months ended August 1, 2010.

3. Acquisition

During the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, we acquired certain assets and assumed certain liabilities of a China-based company engaged in the manufacture of motion control encoder products for $8 million in cash. We adopted the new FASB guidance on business combinations during the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, and the acquisition was accounted for in accordance with this guidance. The purchase price was allocated to the acquired net assets based on preliminary estimates of fair values as follows: total assets of $11 million, including intangible assets of $5 million, goodwill of $2 million, and total liabilities of $3 million. The intangible assets are being amortized over their useful lives ranging from 9 to 25 years. The unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include the results of operations of the acquired business commencing as of the acquisition date. Pro forma results of operations for the acquisition have not been presented because the effects of the acquisition were not material to our prior financial results.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

4. Goodwill and Intangible Assets

Goodwill

The following summarizes the changes in goodwill (in millions):

 

Balance as of November 1, 2009

  

Goodwill

   $ 171

Accumulated impairment losses

     —  
      
     171

Goodwill acquired during the period (Note 3. “Acquisition”)

     2

Impairment losses

     —  
      

Balance as of August 1, 2010

  

Goodwill

     173

Accumulated impairment losses

     —  
      
   $ 173
      

In connection with an acquisition completed during the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, we recorded $2 million of the purchase consideration to goodwill. See Note 3. “Acquisition.”

Intangible Assets

Amortizable purchased intangibles consist of the following (in millions):

 

     Gross Carrying
Amount
   Accumulated
Amortization
    Net Book Value

As of November 1, 2009:

       

Purchased technology

   $ 727    $ (231   $ 496

Customer and distributor relationships

     249      (99     150

Other

     3      (2     1
                     

Total

   $ 979    $ (332   $ 647
                     

As of August 1, 2010:

       

Purchased technology

   $ 727    $ (275   $ 452

Customer and distributor relationships

     253      (115     138

Other

     4      (2     2
                     

Total

   $ 984    $ (392   $ 592
                     

The following table presents the amortization of purchased intangible assets (in millions):

 

     Quarter Ended    Nine Months Ended
     August 2,
2009
   August 1,
2010
   August 2,
2009
   August 1,
2010

Cost of products sold

   $ 15    $ 15    $ 44    $ 44

Operating expenses

     5      5      16      16
                           

Total

   $ 20    $ 20    $ 60    $ 60
                           

During the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we recorded $4 million in intangible assets with a weighted-average amortization period of 19 years in conjunction with an acquisition completed during the second quarter of fiscal year 2009. During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we recorded $5 million in intangible assets with a weighted-average amortization period of 11 years in conjunction with an acquisition completed during the third quarter of fiscal year 2010. See Note 3. “Acquisition.”

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

Based on the amount of intangible assets subject to amortization at August 1, 2010, the expected amortization expense for each of the next five fiscal years and thereafter is as follows (in millions):

 

Fiscal Year

   Amount

2010 (remainder)

   $ 19

2011

     77

2012

     77

2013

     77

2014

     77

2015

     76

Thereafter

     189
      
   $ 592
      

The weighted-average amortization periods remaining by intangible asset category at August 1, 2010 were as follows (in years):

 

Amortizable intangible assets:

  

Purchased technology

   9

Customer and distributor relationships

   8

Other

   23

5. Borrowings

Our borrowings as of November 1, 2009 and August 1, 2010 consist of the following (in millions):

 

     November 1,
2009
   August 1,
2010

Notes:

     

101/8% senior notes due 2013

   $ 318    $ —  

Senior floating rate notes due 2013

     46      —  

117/8% senior subordinated notes due 2015

     230      230
             
     594      230

Less: Current portion of long-term debt

     364      —  
             

Long-term debt

   $ 230    $ 230
             

Debt Repayments

During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we redeemed $318 million in principal amount of 101/8% senior notes due December 1, 2013, or senior fixed rate notes, and $46 million in principal amount of the senior floating rate notes due June 1, 2013, or senior floating rate notes. We redeemed the senior fixed rate notes and senior floating rate notes at 5.063% premium of the principal amount and no premium, respectively, plus accrued interest, resulting in a loss on extinguishment of debt of $24 million, which consisted of $16 million premium and an $8 million write-off of debt issuance costs and other related expenses.

During the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we repurchased $3 million in principal amount of 11 7/8% senior subordinated notes, or senior subordinated notes, from the open market, resulting in a gain on extinguishment of debt of $1 million.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

Senior Credit Facility

As of August 1, 2010, we had a revolving senior secured credit facility in the amount of $350 million which includes borrowing capacity available for letters of credit and for borrowings and is available to us and certain of our subsidiaries in U.S. dollars and other currencies. As of August 1, 2010, we had no borrowing amounts outstanding under the revolving credit facility, although we had $11 million of letters of credit outstanding under the facility, which reduces the amount available under the revolving credit facility on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

6. Fair Value Measurements

Fair value is defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. A three level hierarchy is applied to prioritize the inputs to valuation techniques used to measure fair value. The hierarchy gives the highest priority to unadjusted quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities (Level 1 measurements) and the lowest priority to unobservable inputs (Level 3 measurements).

The three levels of the fair value hierarchy under the guidance for fair value measurements are described below:

Level 1—Level 1 inputs are quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities that the reporting entity has the ability to access at the measurement date. Our Level 1 assets include money market funds and investment funds—deferred compensation plan assets. We measure money market funds and investment funds at quoted market price as they are traded in an active market with sufficient volume and frequency of transactions.

Level 2—Level 2 inputs are inputs other than quoted prices included within Level 1 that are observable for the asset or liability, either directly or indirectly. If the asset or liability has a specified (contractual) term, a Level 2 input must be observable for substantially the full term of the asset or liability. Our Level 2 assets include time deposits which are classified as cash and cash equivalents.

Time deposits are highly liquid with maturities of ninety days or less. Due to their short-term maturities, we have determined that the fair value of time deposits should be at face value.

Level 3—Level 3 inputs are unobservable inputs for the asset or liability in which there is little, if any market activity for the asset or liability at the measurement date. Level 3 assets and liabilities include cost method investments, goodwill, amortizable intangible assets, and property, plant and equipment, which are measured at fair value using a discounted cash flow approach when they are impaired. We did not have any Level 3 asset or liability activities during the quarter ended August 1, 2010.

Assets Measured at Fair Value on a Recurring Basis

The table below sets forth by level our financial assets that were accounted for at fair value as of August 1, 2010. The table does not include cash on hand and also does not include assets that are measured at historical cost or any basis other than fair value (in millions).

 

          Fair Value Measurement as of
August 1, 2010 Using
     Portion of Carrying
Value Measured at
Fair Value as of
August 1, 2010
   Quoted Prices In
Active Market
For Identical
Assets (Level 1)
   Significant
Other
Observable
Inputs (Level 2)

Money Market Funds (1)

   $ 95    $ 95    $ —  

Time deposits (1)

     193      —        193

Investment Funds - Deferred Compensation Plan Assets (2)

     3      3      —  
                    

Total assets measured at fair value

   $ 291    $ 98    $ 193
                    

 

(1) Included in cash and cash equivalents in our unaudited condensed consolidated balance sheet
(2) Included in other current assets in our unaudited condensed consolidated balance sheet

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

During the three and nine months ended August 1, 2010, there were no material transfers between Level 1 and Level 2 fair value instruments.

Assets Measured at Fair Value on a Nonrecurring Basis

There were no nonfinancial assets or liabilities measured at fair value as of August 1, 2010.

Fair Value of Other Financial Instruments

The following table presents the carrying amounts and fair values of financial instruments as of November 1, 2009 and August 1, 2010 (in millions):

 

     November 1, 2009    August 1, 2010
     Carrying
Value
   Fair
Value
   Carrying
Value
   Fair
Value

Variable rate debt

   $ 46    $ 45    $ —      $ —  

Fixed rate debt

     548      586      230      251

The fair values of cash and cash equivalents, trade accounts receivable, accounts payable and accrued liabilities, to the extent the underlying liability will be settled in cash, approximate carrying values because of the short-term nature of these instruments. The fair value of our long-term debt is based on quoted market rates.

7. Shareholder’s Equity

On January 27, 2010, Parent’s registration statement filed with the SEC in connection with the public offering and sale by certain shareholders of Parent of an aggregate of 25,000,000 of Parent’s ordinary shares, or the Offering, was declared effective. The Offering closed on February 2, 2010, and 25,000,000 shares were sold to the public at a price per share of $17.41 including a $0.41 per share discount to the underwriters. Parent did not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares sold in the Offering other than proceeds from options exercised by certain shareholders in connection with the sale of shares by them in the Offering. On February 23, 2010, the underwriters exercised their option in full to purchase from certain selling shareholders up to an additional 3,750,000 ordinary shares to cover over-allotments, which transaction closed on February 26, 2010.

Share-Based Compensation

The following table summarizes share-based compensation expense related to share-based awards granted to employees, directors, and non-employees for the quarters and nine months ended August 2, 2009 and August 1, 2010 (in millions):

 

     Quarter Ended    Nine Months Ended
     August 2,
2009
   August 1,
2010
   August 2,
2009
   August 1,
2010

Cost of products sold

   $ —      $ 1    $ —      $ 2

Research and development

     1      2      3      5

Selling, general and administrative

     2      4      4      11
                           

Total share-based compensation expense

   $ 3    $ 7    $ 7    $ 18
                           

The weighted-average assumptions utilized for our Black-Scholes valuation model for options granted during the quarters and nine months ended August 2, 2009 and August 1, 2010 are as follows:

 

     Quarter Ended     Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Risk-free interest rate

   3.2   1.9   2.3   2.3

Dividend yield

   0   0   0   0

Volatility

   53.0   45.0   57.0   45.0

Expected term (in years)

   6.5      5.0      6.5      5.0   

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

The dividend yield of zero is based on the fact that we had no intention to pay cash dividends as of the respective option grant dates. Expected volatility is based on the combination of historical volatility of guideline publicly traded companies over the period commensurate with the expected life of the options and the implied volatility of guideline publicly traded companies from traded options with a term of 180 days or greater measured over the last three months. The risk-free interest rate is derived from the average U.S. Treasury Strips rate during the period, which approximates the rate in effect at the time of grant. For the options granted during the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we used the simplified method specified by the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 110, or SAB No. 110 to determine the expected term of stock options for options grants that met the criteria of “plain vanilla” options under SAB No. 110. For those options granted during the nine months ended August 2, 2009 that did not meet the criteria of “plain vanilla” and for all options granted during the nine months ended August 1, 2010, our computation of expected term was based on other data, such as the data of peer companies and company-specific attributes that we believe could affect employees’ exercise behavior.

Based on the above assumptions, the weighted-average fair values of the options granted under the share option plans for the quarters ended August 2, 2009 and August 1, 2010 were $4.00 and $8.61, respectively, and $3.62 and $8.09 for the nine months ended August 2, 2009 and August 1, 2010, respectively.

Based on our historical experience of pre-vesting option cancellations, for the nine months ended August 2, 2009 and August 1, 2010 we have assumed an annualized forfeiture rate of 15% and 10%, respectively, for our options. We will record additional expense if actual forfeitures are lower than we estimated, and will record a recovery of prior expense if actual forfeitures are higher than we estimated.

Total compensation cost related to unvested options as of August 1, 2010 was $61 million, which is expected to be recognized over the remaining weighted-average service period of 3 years.

A summary of award activity follows (in millions, except years and per share amounts):

 

     Awards Outstanding
     Awards
Available for
Grant
    Number
Outstanding
    Weighted-
Average
Exercise Price
Per Share
   Weighted-
Average
Remaining
Contractual Life
(in years)
   Aggregate
Intrinsic
Value

Balance as of November 1, 2009

   20      24      $ 8.69      

Granted

   (3   3      $ 19.30      

Exercised

   —        (4   $ 6.12      

Cancelled

   1      (1   $ 9.45      
                    

Balance as of August 1, 2010

   18      22      $ 10.43    7.30    $ 247
                    

Vested as of August 1, 2010

     8      $ 6.95    5.97    $ 114

Vested and expected to vest as of August 1, 2010

     20      $ 10.11    7.18    $ 228

The following table summarizes the ranges of outstanding and exercisable awards as of August 1, 2010 (in millions, except years and per share amounts):

 

     Awards Outstanding    Awards Exercisable

Exercise Prices

   Number
Outstanding
   Weighted-
Average
Remaining
Contractual
Life (in years)
   Weighted-
Average
Exercise Price
Per Share
   Number
Exercisable
   Weighted-
Average
Exercise Price
Per Share

$0.00-5.00

   7    5.28    $ 4.94    5    $ 4.91

5.01-10.00

   3    8.18    $ 8.98    1    $ 8.32

10.01-15.00

   9    7.64    $ 11.65    2    $ 10.31

15.01-20.00

   2    9.33    $ 17.50    —      $ —  

20.01-25.00

   1    9.78    $ 20.76    —      $ —  
                  

Total

   22    7.30    $ 10.43    8    $ 6.95
                  

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

8. Restructuring Charges

During the quarter and the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we incurred $14 million and $24 million in one-time employee termination costs, respectively, in connection with the restructuring plan to realign our cost structure with the then macroeconomic business conditions.

In addition, for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, in connection with the plan to outsource certain manufacturing facilities in Germany, we recorded $1 million of excess lease costs and for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we incurred $5 million of one-time employee termination costs, $1 million related to asset abandonment and other exit costs and approximately $1 million of excess lease costs.

During the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we also recorded $1 million of one-time employee termination costs in connection with the departure of our Chief Operating Officer in January 2009.

As part of our efforts to realign our cost structure, we incurred approximately $2 million of one-time employee termination costs during the quarter ended August 1, 2010 and $3 million of one-time employee termination costs and $1 million of excess lease costs during the nine months ended August 1, 2010.

The significant activities within and components of restructuring charges during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 are as follows (in millions):

 

     Employee
Termination
Costs
    Excess
Lease
    Total  

Accrued restructuring as of November 1, 2009 - included in other current liabilities

   $ 2      $ 1      $ 3   

Charges to cost of products sold

     1        —          1   

Charges to operating expenses

     2        1        3   

Cash payments

     (3     (2     (5
                        

Accrued restructuring as of August 1, 2010 - included in other current liabilities

   $ 2      $ —        $ 2   
                        

9. Income Taxes

For the quarter ended August 1, 2010, we recorded an income tax provision of $4 million compared to $6 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009. For the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we recorded an income tax provision of $17 million, compared to $9 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009.

In February 2010, the Malaysian government granted us a tax holiday on our qualifying Malaysian income, which is effective for ten years beginning with our fiscal year 2009. As a result of receiving this tax incentive, we wrote down deferred tax assets of $6 million during the quarter ended May 2, 2010 that we previously recorded in this jurisdiction, which is included in the $17 million provision for income tax referred to above.

10. Segment Information

ASC 280 “Segment Reporting,” or ASC 280, establishes standards for the way public business enterprises report information about operating segments in annual consolidated financial statements and requires that those enterprises report selected information about operating segments in interim financial reports. ASC 280 also establishes standards for related disclosures about products and services, geographic areas and major customers. We have concluded that we have one reportable segment based on the following factors: sales of semiconductors represents our only material source of revenue; substantially all products offered incorporate analog functionality and are manufactured under similar manufacturing processes; we use an integrated approach in developing our products in that discrete technologies developed are frequently integrated across many of our products; we use a common order fulfillment process and similar distribution approach for our products; and broad distributor networks are typically utilized while large accounts are serviced by a direct sales force. The Chief Executive Officer has been identified as the Chief Operating Decision Maker as defined by ASC 280.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

11. Related Party Transactions

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., or KKR, and Silver Lake Partners, or Silver Lake

As of August 27, 2010, KKR and Silver Lake together, the Sponsors, through their investments in Bali Investments S.àr.l., indirectly own approximately 48% of Parent’s shares. We previously entered into an advisory agreement with affiliates of the Sponsors, for ongoing consulting and management advisory services. Pursuant to the advisory agreement, we also recorded less than $1 million of advisory fees payable to each of KKR and Silver Lake during the nine months ended August 2, 2009 in connection with a qualifying acquisition. The advisory agreement was terminated in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009, in connection with Parent’s Initial Public Offering, or IPO.

Capstone Consulting

Capstone Consulting, or Capstone, an affiliate of KKR was granted options to purchase 800,000 ordinary shares of Parent with an exercise price of $5.00 per share on February 3, 2006. These options were no longer subject to variable accounting as 700,000 of the option shares vested by the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 and performance targets related to the remaining 100,000 option shares were not met and these 100,000 options shares did not vest.

Bali Investments S.àr.l, Seletar Investments Pte. Ltd. and Geyser Investment Pte. Ltd.

In connection with the Offering, selling shareholders Bali Investments S.àr.l, Geyser Investments Pte. Ltd. and Seletar Investment Pte. Ltd. agreed to reimburse the Company for two-thirds of the expenses of the Offering.

Flextronics

Mr. James A. Davidson, a director, also serves as a director of Flextronics International Ltd., or Flextronics. In the ordinary course of business, we sell certain of our products to Flextronics.

Hewlett-Packard Company

Mr. John R. Joyce, a director until March 26, 2010, also serves as a director of Hewlett-Packard Company. In the ordinary course of business, we sell certain of our products to Hewlett-Packard Company. We also use Hewlett-Packard Company as a service provider for information technology services.

PMC Sierra, Inc.

Mr. James Diller, a director and the chairman of our board of directors, also serves on the board of directors of PMC Sierra, Inc., or PMC Sierra, as vice-chairman. In the ordinary course of business, we sell certain of our products to PMC Sierra.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

Transactions and balances with our related parties were as follows (in millions):

 

     Quarter Ended    Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
   August 1,
2010
   August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Net revenue:

          

Flextronics

   $ 21    $ 27    $ 68      $ 86   

Hewlett-Packard Company1

     10      —        31        12   

PMC Sierra

     —        —        1        —     

Operating expenses:

          

KKR (Advisory fees)

   $ 1      —      $ 2        —     

Silver Lake (Advisory fees)

     1      —        2        —     

Hewlett-Packard Company1

     5      —        19        6   

Capstone (Share-based compensation)

     1      —        —       —  

 

     November 1,
2009
   August 1,
2010
 

Receivables:

     

Flextronics

   $ 16    $ 14   

Hewlett-Packard Company1

     4      —     

Bali Investments S.àr.l.

     —        1   

Seletar Investments Pte. Ltd.

     —        —  

Geyser Investment Pte. Ltd.

     —        —  
     November 1,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Payables:

    

KKR

   $ —     $ —  

Silver Lake

     —       —  

 

* Represents amounts less than $0.5 million.
1

Amounts represent net revenue and operating expense transactions with Hewlett-Packard Company through the six months ended May 2, 2010, after which Hewlett-Packard ceased to be a related party.

12. Commitments and Contingencies

Commitments

Purchase Commitments. At August 1, 2010, we had unconditional purchase obligations of $52 million for fiscal year 2010 and none thereafter. These unconditional purchase obligations include agreements to purchase goods or services that are enforceable and legally binding on us and that specify all significant terms, including fixed or minimum quantities to be purchased, fixed, minimum or variable price provisions and the approximate timing of the transaction. Purchase obligations exclude agreements that are cancelable without penalty.

Debt. At August 1, 2010, we had debt obligations of $230 million. Estimated future interest expense payments related to debt obligations at August 1, 2010 were $7 million for the remainder of 2010, $29 million for 2011, $28 million for 2012, and $27 million each for 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively and $2 million thereafter. Estimated future interest expense payments include interest payments on our outstanding notes, commitment fees, and letter of credit fees. See Note 5. “Borrowings.”

There were no other substantial changes to our contractual commitments during the first nine months of fiscal year 2010 from those disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2009.

Contingencies

We are subject to certain routine legal proceedings, as well as demands, claims and threatened litigation, that arise in the normal course of our business, including assertions that we may be infringing patents or other intellectual property rights of others. We

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

currently believe the ultimate amount of liability, if any, for any pending claims of any type (either alone or combined) will not materially affect our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. We also believe we would be able to obtain any necessary licenses or other rights to disputed intellectual property rights on commercially reasonable terms. However, the ultimate outcome of any litigation is uncertain and, regardless of outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense costs, negative publicity, timing of adverse resolutions, diversion of management resources and other factors. Our failure to obtain necessary license or other rights, or litigation arising out of intellectual property claims, could adversely affect our business.

On July 23, 2009, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. filed a complaint against us and certain of our subsidiaries in the U.S. District Court, District of Arizona seeking declaratory judgment that four of our patents relating to radio frequency, or RF, filter technology used in our wireless products are invalid and, if valid, that TriQuint’s products do not infringe any of those patents. In addition, TriQuint claims that certain of our wireless products infringe three of its patents. TriQuint is seeking damages in an unspecified amount, treble damages for alleged willful infringement, attorneys fees and injunctive relief. We filed our answer and initial counterclaim on September 17, 2009, denying infringement, asserting the invalidity of TriQuint’s patents and asserting infringement by TriQuint of ten Avago patents, and filed additional counterclaims on March 25, 2010 for the misappropriation of Avago trade secrets. On October 16, 2009, TriQuint filed its answer to our counterclaim, denying infringement and filed an antitrust counterclaim and counterclaims for declaratory judgment of non infringement and invalidity. While the court dismissed TriQuint’s antitrust counterclaims on procedural grounds on March 16, 2010, TriQuint has since filed a motion to file an amended pleading for its anti-trust claims, which was granted on August 3, 2010. We intend to defend this lawsuit vigorously, which actions may include the assertion by us of additional claims or counterclaims against TriQuint related to our intellectual property portfolio.

In addition, on February 8, 2010, PixArt Imaging Inc. filed an action against us in the U.S District court, Northern District of California seeking a determination of whether PixArt is licensed to use our portfolio of patents for optical finger navigation products pursuant to an existing cross-license agreement between us and PixArt, which license is limited to optical mouse and optical mouse trackball products. We did not license to PixArt our patents for optical finger navigation products. We intend to defend this action vigorously and to seek to have the scope of the cross-license agreement properly construed by the court as excluding such products. We also filed a counterclaim against PixArt on March 31, 2010, asserting that PixArt has breached the terms of the cross-license agreement between the parties. We are seeking a determination that PixArt is not licensed to use our portfolio of patents for optical finger navigation products, damages in an unspecified amount, termination for breach, or rescission, of the license agreement and attorneys fees.

On March 15, 2010 we filed a patent infringement action against ST Microelectronics NV in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of four of our patents related to optical navigation devices. We amended the complaint on July 6, 2010 adding infringement of a fifth optical navigation related patent to the action. We are seeking injunctive relief, damages in an unspecified amount, treble damages for willful infringement and attorneys fees. In response, ST Microelectronics filed a patent infringement action against us in the Northern District of Texas alleging that our sales of certain optical navigation devices infringed two ST Microelectronics’ patents. ST Microelectronics is seeking injunctive relief and damages in an unspecified amount. We intend to defend this lawsuit vigorously, and future actions may include the assertion by us of additional claims or counterclaims against ST Microelectronics related to our intellectual property portfolio.

Warranty

Commencing in the second quarter of fiscal year 2008, we notified certain customers of a product quality issue and began taking additional steps to correct the quality issue and work with affected customers to determine potential costs covered by our warranty obligations. We maintain insurance coverage for product liability and have been working with our insurance carriers to determine the extent of covered losses in this situation. Based on settlements with customers to date, the status of discussions with other affected customers and discussions with our insurance carriers, we recorded a charge of $2 million during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 to cover costs relating to this quality issue in excess of expected insurance coverage. We continue to have discussions with affected customers and presently believe that amounts we have recorded in our financial statements along with expected insurance coverage proceeds will be adequate to resolve these claims, although this assessment is subject to change based on the ultimate resolution of this matter with customers and the insurance carriers. In addition, if the timing of settlement of claims with customers and the timing of determination of insurance recoveries do not occur in the same reporting periods, there could be material increases in charges to statement of operations in a future period and decreases in a subsequent period once insurance recoveries are deemed probable of realization.

 

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AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)

 

During the second quarter of fiscal year 2009 we identified another product quality issue with a particular component, took steps to correct the quality issue and notified our customers. Though the expected failure rate of the product was not 100%, based on our quality tests, we have offered to replace all such components used or still held by our customers. We recorded charges of $6 million during fiscal year 2009 related to this product quality issue, based on the progress of discussions with our customers and our evaluation of the best estimate of our exposure related to this matter, which covered costs to scrap inventory of such components held by us and costs associated with providing replacement parts to customers. During the first six months of fiscal year 2010, we recorded additional charges of $11 million, consisting of $5 million and $6 million in the first and second quarters of fiscal year 2010, respectively, to cover customer claims for reimbursements of costs incurred by such customers related to this product quality issue. During the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, we reached final settlement agreements with certain customers on this product quality issue. The final settlement amounts approximate the estimated accrued warranty obligations for those customers. We made $1 million of cash settlement payments in connection with certain of these agreements during the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, resulting in a $1 million decrease in the warranty accrual for this product quality issue during this same period. We presently believe that amounts we have recorded in our financial statements will be adequate to resolve any warranty obligations related to this issue, although this assessment is subject to change based on the ultimate resolution of this matter with remaining customers. We continue to have discussions with affected customers on the matter and although we have made our best estimate of the expected warranty obligation based on available information, we could record further charges in future periods based on the ultimate resolution of this matter with such customers.

Indemnifications to Hewlett-Packard and Agilent

Agilent Technologies, Inc. has given multiple indemnities to Hewlett-Packard Company in connection with its activities prior to its spin-off from Hewlett-Packard Company in June 1999 for the businesses that constituted Agilent prior to the spin-off. As the successor to the Semiconductor Products Group, or SPG, business of Agilent, we have acquired responsibility for indemnifications related to assigned intellectual property agreements. Additionally, when we completed the acquisition of SPG from Agilent in December 2005, we provided indemnities to Agilent with regard to Agilent’s conduct of the SPG business prior to the SPG acquisition. In our opinion, the fair value of these indemnifications is not material.

Other Indemnifications

As is customary in our industry and as provided for in local law in the United States and other jurisdictions, many of our standard contracts provide remedies to our customers and others with whom we enter into contracts, such as defense, settlement, or payment of judgment for intellectual property claims related to the use of our products. From time to time, we indemnify customers, as well as our suppliers, contractors, lessors, lessees, companies that purchase our businesses or assets and others with whom we enter into contracts, against combinations of loss, expense, or liability arising from various triggering events related to the sale and the use of our products, the use of their goods and services, the use of facilities and state of our owned facilities, the state of the assets and businesses that we sell and other matters covered by such contracts, usually up to a specified maximum amount. In addition, from time to time we also provide protection to these parties against claims related to undiscovered liabilities, additional product liability or environmental obligations. In our experience, claims made under such indemnifications are rare and the associated estimated fair value of the liability is not material.

13. Subsequent Event

On August 6, 2010, Parent filed a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 with the SEC, through which Parent may sell from time to time any combination of ordinary shares, debt securities, warrants, rights, purchase contracts and units, in one or more offerings. On August 13, 2010 certain of Parent’s shareholders offered and sold 14,905,000 of Parent’s ordinary shares in a registered public offering (“the August Offering”). The August Offering closed on August 18, 2010. Parent did not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares sold in the August Offering other than proceeds from options exercised by certain shareholders in connection with the sale of shares by them in the August Offering.

 

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Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and the audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto and management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations for the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, or fiscal year 2009, included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2009, or 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-K. This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q may contain predictions, estimates and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which are made under the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including, but not limited to, any projections of financial information; any statements about historical results that may suggest trends for our business; any statements of the plans, strategies, and objectives of management for future operations; any statements of expectation or belief regarding future events, technology developments, our products, product sales, expenses, liquidity, cash flow, growth rates and restructuring efforts, or enforceability of our intellectual property rights and related litigation expenses; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections of future Avago or industry performance based on management’s judgment, beliefs, current trends and market conditions and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, we caution you not to place undue reliance on these statements. For example, there can be no assurance that our product sales efforts, revenues or expenses will meet any expectations or follow any trend(s), or that our ability to compete effectively will be successful or yield anticipated results. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations are disclosed under “Risk Factors” in Part II, Item 1A of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and in other documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We undertake no intent or obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Overview

We are a leading designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of analog semiconductor devices with a focus on III-V based products. III-V semiconductor materials have higher electrical conductivity and thus tend to have better performance characteristics in radio frequency, or RF, and optoelectronic applications than silicon. We differentiate ourselves through our high performance design and integration capabilities. We serve four primary target markets: wireless communications, wired infrastructure, industrial and automotive electronics, and consumer and computing peripherals. Applications for our products in these target markets include cellular phones, consumer appliances, data networking and telecommunications equipment, enterprise storage and servers, factory automation, displays, optical mice and printers.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

The preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenue and expenses during the reporting period. We base our estimates and assumptions on current facts, historical experience and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities and the accrual of costs and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. The actual results experienced by us may differ materially and adversely from our estimates. Our critical accounting policies are those that affect our historical financial statements materially and involve difficult, subjective or complex judgments by management. Those policies include revenue recognition, valuation of long-lived assets, intangible assets and goodwill, inventory valuation and warranty reserves, accounting for income taxes and share-based compensation.

There have been no significant changes in our critical accounting policies during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to those previously disclosed in “Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates” in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included in our 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

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Results from Operations

Quarter and Nine Months Ended August 1, 2010 Compared to Quarter and Nine Months Ended August 2, 2009

The following tables set forth our results of operations for the quarters and nine months ended August 1, 2010 and August 2, 2009.

 

     Quarter Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 
     (In millions)     (As a percentage of net revenue)  

Statement of Operations Data:

        

Net revenue

   $ 363      $ 550      100   100

Cost of products sold:

        

Cost of products sold

     205        271      56      49   

Amortization of intangible assets

     15        15      4      3   

Restructuring charges

     2        1      1      0   
                            

Total cost of products sold

     222        287      61      52   
                            

Gross margin

     141        263      39      48   

Research and development

     59        71      16      13   

Selling, general and administrative

     40        51      11      9   

Amortization of intangible assets

     5        5      1      1   

Restructuring charges

     13        1      4      0   
                            

Total operating expenses

     117        128      32      23   
                            

Income from operations

     24        135      7      25   

Interest expense

     (20     (8   (5   (2

Other income, net

     4        —        1      0   
                            

Income before income taxes

     8        127      3      23   

Provision for income taxes

     6        4      2      1   
                            

Net income

   $ 2      $ 123      1   22
                            

 

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     Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 
     (In millions)     (As a percentage of net revenue)  

Statement of Operations Data:

        

Net revenue

   $ 1,056      $ 1,521      100   100

Cost of products sold:

        

Cost of products sold

     619        786      59      52   

Amortization of intangible assets

     44        44      4      3   

Restructuring charges

     11        1      1      0   
                            

Total cost of products sold

     674        831      64      55   
                            

Gross margin

     382        690      36      45   

Research and development

     180        205      17      13   

Selling, general and administrative

     122        145      12      10   

Amortization of intangible assets

     16        16      2      1   

Restructuring charges

     21        3      1      0   
                            

Total operating expenses

     339        369      32      24   
                            

Income from operations

     43        321      4      21   

Interest expense

     (58     (27   (5   (2

Gain (loss) on extinguishment of debt

     1        (24   0      (1

Other income (expense), net

     —          (2   0      0   
                            

Income (loss) before income taxes

     (14     268      (1   18   

Provision for income taxes

     9        17      1      1   
                            

Net income (loss)

   $ (23   $ 251      (2 )%    17
                            

Net revenue. Net revenue was $550 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2010, compared to $363 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $187 million or 52%. Net revenue was $1,521 million for the nine months ended August 1, 2010, compared to $1,056 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $465 million or 44%. Net revenue increased primarily due to strength in the industrial and automotive electronics and wireless communications target markets in the nine months ended August 1, 2010. The increase in net revenue was also due to significantly improved general economic conditions in the quarter and the nine months ended August 1, 2010, compared to the corresponding periods in 2009, as well as growth from proprietary products in our wireless communications and wired infrastructure target markets.

Net revenue by target market data is derived from our understanding of our end customers’ primary markets, and was as follows:

 

     Quarter Ended           Nine Months Ended        
      August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    Change     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    Change  

% of net revenue

            

Wireless communications

     46     38     (8 )%      41     38     (3 )% 

Industrial and automotive electronics

     19        31        12        23        29        6   

Wired infrastructure

     24        22        (2     26        24        (2

Consumer and computing peripherals

     11        9        (2     10        9        (1
                                    

Total net revenue

     100     100       100     100  
                                    
     Quarter Ended           Nine Months Ended        
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    Change     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
    Change  

Net revenue (in millions)

            

Wireless communications

   $ 168      $ 207      $ 39      $ 433      $ 576      $ 143   

Industrial and automotive electronics

     70        170        100        240        434        194   

Wired infrastructure

     87        123        36        280        367        87   

Consumer and computing peripherals

     38        50        12        103        144        41   
                                                

Total net revenue

   $ 363      $ 550      $ 187      $ 1,056      $ 1,521      $ 465   
                                                

 

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Net revenue from wireless communications products, in absolute dollars, increased significantly in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2010, and in the first nine months of fiscal year 2010, compared with the corresponding prior year periods. The growth of key platforms in next-generation smart phones at leading OEM customers, which incorporate many of our proprietary products such as 3G front-end modules, as well as increased demand for our proprietary optical finger navigation devices, drove this revenue growth.

Net revenue from industrial and automotive electronics products, in absolute dollars and as a percentage of net revenue, increased substantially in the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 and in the first nine months of fiscal year 2010 compared with the corresponding prior year periods. The increase was in large part due to the effects of a recovery in market conditions. The growth in this target market was broad based, with particular strength in sales of optocouplers, industrial fiber optic transceivers and motion encoders. We benefitted from increased spending on and new uses for our devices in applications such as inverters, servo machine tools and programmable logic controller/fieldbus industrial data communications systems used in power production and distribution, including renewable energy and smart power grid installations, factory automation and transportation applications, as well as gains in market share for a number of these products.

Net revenue from wired infrastructure products, in absolute dollars, increased in the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 and in the first nine months of fiscal year 2010 compared with the corresponding prior year periods, as spending on enterprise networking data centers and core routing improved.

Net revenue from consumer and computing peripheral products, in absolute dollars, increased in the third quarter and in the first nine months of fiscal year 2010 compared with the corresponding periods in 2009, reflecting improved sales of optical sensors and improved sales of motion encoders used in applications such as optical disc drives in the first nine months of fiscal year 2010.

Gross margin. Gross margin was $263 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2010 compared to $141 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $122 million or 87%. As a percentage of net revenue, gross margin increased to 48% for the quarter ended August 1, 2010 from 39% for the quarter ended August 2, 2009. Gross margin was $690 million for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to $382 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $308 million or 81%. As a percentage of net revenue, gross margin increased to 45% for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 from 36% for the nine months ended August 2, 2009. The increase in gross margin percentage was attributable to continuing improvements in product mix as well as increased operating levels in our internal fabrication facilities. During the quarter ended August 1, 2010, compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009, and the nine months ended August 1, 2010, compared to the nine months ended August 2, 2009, a higher proportion of our net revenues were from products sold into the industrial and automotive electronics target market and from sales of our proprietary products, which generally earn higher margins than our other products. During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we recorded write-downs to inventories associated with reduced demand assumptions of $10 million compared to $21 million during the nine months ended August 2, 2009. We also recorded charges of $11 million during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 for warranty costs compared to $3 million in the nine months ended August 2, 2009, as more fully discussed in Note 12 to the Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

Research and development. Research and development expense was $71 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2010, compared to $59 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $12 million or 20%. As a percentage of net revenue, research and development expenses decreased to 13% for the quarter ended August 1, 2010 from 16% for the quarter ended August 2, 2009. The increase in absolute dollars was primarily attributable to $4 million in additional research and development project support, a $3 million increase in incentive compensation expense related to our employee bonus program which is a variable expense related to our overall profitability and $2 million increase in employee compensation related to annual merit increases implemented in fiscal year 2010 as compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009. The decrease as a percentage of net revenue is primarily attributable to an increase in net revenue of 52% during the quarter ended August 1, 2010 compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009.

Research and development expense was $205 million for the nine months ended August 1, 2010, compared to $180 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $25 million or 14%. As a percentage of net revenue, research and development expenses decreased to 13% for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 from 17% for the nine months ended August 2, 2009. The increase in absolute dollars was primarily attributable to a $9 million increase in incentive compensation expense related to our employee bonus program, which is a variable expense related to our overall profitability, $5 million increase in employee compensation related to annual merit increases implemented in fiscal year 2010, $5 million in additional research and development project support and $3 million increase in share-based compensation expense as compared to the nine months ended August 2, 2009. The decrease as a percentage of net revenue is primarily attributable to an increase in net revenue of 44% during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to the nine months ended August 2, 2009.

 

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Selling, general and administrative. Selling, general and administrative expense was $51 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2010 compared to $40 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $11 million or 28%. As a percentage of net revenue, selling, general and administrative decreased to 9% for the quarter ended August 1, 2010 compared to 11% for the quarter ended August 2, 2009. The increase in absolute dollars was primarily attributable to a $2 million increase in incentive compensation expense related to our employee bonus program which is a variable expense related to our overall profitability, $2 million increase in legal expenses related to offensive litigation matters initiated in fiscal year 2010, and $2 million increase in share-based compensation expense as compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009. The decrease as a percentage of net revenue is primarily attributable to an increase in net revenue of 52% during the quarter ended August 1, 2010 compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009.

Selling, general and administrative expense was $145 million for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to $122 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, an increase of $23 million or 19%. As a percentage of net revenue, selling, general and administrative expense decreased to 10% for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to 12% for the nine months ended August 2, 2009. The increase in absolute dollars was attributable to a $9 million increase in incentive compensation expense related to our employee bonus program which is a variable expense related to our overall profitability, $7 million increase in share-based compensation expense as compared to the quarter ended August 2, 2009, $2 million increase in legal expenses related to offensive litigation matters initiated in fiscal year 2010 and $2 million increase in sales commission expense as compared to the nine months ended August 2, 2009. The decrease as a percentage of net revenue is primarily attributable to an increase in net revenue of 44% during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to the nine months ended August 2, 2009.

Amortization of intangible assets. Total amortization of intangible assets incurred was $20 million each for the quarters ended August 1, 2010 and August 2, 2009. Total amortization of intangible assets incurred was $60 million each for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 and August 2, 2009.

Restructuring charges. During the quarter ended August 1, 2010, we incurred $2 million in total restructuring charges, compared to total restructuring charges of $15 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009. During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we incurred total restructuring charges of $4 million compared to $32 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, both predominantly representing employee termination costs. The decrease in total restructuring charges for both the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010 compared to the quarter and nine months ended August 2, 2009 is due to our significant restructuring activities in fiscal year 2009 in response to the then macroeconomic business conditions. See Note 8 to the Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

Interest expense. Interest expense was $8 million for the quarter ended August 1, 2010, compared to $20 million for the quarter ended August 2, 2009, which represents a decrease of $12 million or 60%. Interest expense was $27 million for the nine months ended August 1, 2010, compared to $58 million for the nine months ended August 2, 2009, which represents a decrease of $31 million or 53%. The decrease is primarily due to the redemption and repurchases of $470 million aggregate principal amount of our outstanding notes made subsequent to the first quarter of fiscal year 2009.

Gain (loss) on extinguishment of debt. During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we redeemed $318 million aggregate principal amount of our senior fixed rate notes and the remaining $46 million aggregate principal amount of our senior floating rate notes. The redemption of the senior fixed rate notes and senior floating rate notes resulted in a loss on extinguishment of debt of $24 million. During the nine months ended August 2, 2009, we repurchased $3 million in principal amount of our senior subordinated notes in the open market, resulting in a gain on extinguishment of debt of $1 million. See Note 5 to the Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

Other income (expense), net. Other income (expense), net includes interest income, currency gains (losses) on balance sheet remeasurement and other miscellaneous items. Other income, net was less than $1 million and other expense, net was $2 million for the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010, respectively, compared to other income, net of $4 million and less than $1 million for the quarter and nine months ended August 2, 2009, respectively. Other income, net for the quarter and nine months ended August 2, 2009 included a $4 million in government grants offset by a $2 million other-than-temporary impairment charge related to an investment accounted for under the cost method. Other income, net and other expense, net for the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010 included currency losses of $1 million and $4 million, respectively, offset by $1 million in government grants in each period.

 

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Provision for income taxes. We recorded income tax expense of $4 million and $17 million for the quarter and nine months ended August 1, 2010, respectively, and compared to $6 million and $9 million for the quarter and nine months ended August 2, 2009, respectively. In February 2010, the Malaysian government granted us a tax holiday on our qualifying Malaysian income, which is effective for ten years beginning with our fiscal year 2009. As a result of receiving this tax incentive, during the quarter ended May 2, 2010 we wrote down deferred tax assets of $6 million that we previously recorded which is included in the $17 million income tax expense referred to above. As a result, our income tax expense was higher in the second quarter and first nine months of fiscal year 2010 than the corresponding periods in fiscal year 2009.

Backlog

Our sales are generally made pursuant to short-term purchase orders. These purchase orders are made without deposits and may be rescheduled, canceled or modified on relatively short notice, and in most cases without substantial penalty. Therefore, we believe that purchase orders or backlog are not a reliable indicator of future sales.

Seasonality

Sales of consumer electronics are higher during the calendar year end period, and as a result, we typically experience higher revenues during our fourth fiscal quarter while sales typically decline in our first fiscal quarter.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our primary sources of liquidity as at August 1, 2010, consisted of: (1) approximately $367 million in cash and cash equivalents, (2) cash we expect to generate from operations and (3) our $350 million revolving credit facility, which is committed until December 1, 2011, of which $339 million is available to be drawn (after taking into account $11 million of letters of credit outstanding under the facility). Our short-term and long-term liquidity requirements primarily arise from: (i) interest and principal payments related to our debt obligations, (ii) working capital requirements and (iii) capital expenditures, including acquisitions from time to time. We believe that our cash and cash equivalents on hand, and cash flows from operations, combined with availability under our revolving credit facility, will provide sufficient liquidity to fund our current obligations, projected working capital requirements and capital spending for at least the next 12 months.

In August 2010, Avago Technologies Limited, or Parent, filed a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 with the SEC, through which Parent may sell from time to time any combination of ordinary shares, debt securities, warrants, rights, purchase contracts and units, in one or more offerings.

On July 1, 2010, we amended the credit agreement governing our revolving credit facility to, among other things (i) give us additional flexibility, subject to certain conditions, to make certain restricted payments, and (ii) clarify and amend the provisions in the credit agreement relating to defaulting lenders, including provisions relating to the rights and obligations of the borrowers and the non-defaulting lenders in the event of, among other things, the insolvency of a lender or its parent company.

On December 1, 2009, we used the remaining net proceeds from Parent’s IPO in August 2009 to fund a portion of the redemption of an aggregate of $364 million principal amount of our outstanding notes, consisting of the remaining $318 million principal amount of our senior fixed rate notes and the remaining $46 million principal amount of our senior floating rate notes, pursuant to the terms of the indenture governing those notes. We paid an aggregate of $351 million in respect of the redemption of senior fixed rate notes and $46 million in respect of the redemption of the senior floating rate notes, including accrued and unpaid interest to but not including the redemption date.

Our ability to service our senior subordinated notes and any indebtedness we incur under our revolving credit facility will depend on our ability to generate cash in the future. We may not have significant cash available to meet any large unanticipated liquidity requirements, other than from available borrowings, if any, under our revolving credit facility. As a result, we may not retain a sufficient amount of cash to finance growth opportunities, including acquisitions, or unanticipated capital expenditures or to fund our operations. If we do not have sufficient cash for these purposes, our financial condition and our business could suffer.

 

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In summary, our cash flows were as follows (in millions):

 

     Nine Months Ended  
     August 2,
2009
    August 1,
2010
 

Net cash provided by operating activities

   $ 87      $ 315   

Net cash used in investing activities

     (42     (56

Net cash used in financing activities

     (4     (364
                

Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents

   $ 41      $ (105
                

Cash Flows for the Nine Months Ended August 1, 2010 and August 2, 2009

Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities during the nine months ended August 1, 2010 was $315 million. The net cash provided by operating activities was principally due to net income of $251 million and non-cash charges of $146 million, offset by changes in operating assets and liabilities of $82 million. The non-cash charges of $146 million included $119 million for depreciation and amortization, $18 million of share-based compensation and $8 million of debt issuance costs written off in connection with our debt redemption. Net income was also reduced by $16 million for the premium paid on our debt redemption which is included in the $24 million loss on extinguishment of debt in the unaudited condensed consolidated statement of operations.

Accounts receivable increased to $279 million at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 from $186 million at the end of fiscal year 2009. The number of days sales outstanding increased to 46 days at August 1, 2010 from 40 days at November 1, 2009 due to linearity of revenue. We use the current quarter revenue in our calculation of number of days sales outstanding.

Inventory increased to $185 million at August 1, 2010 from $162 million at the end of fiscal year 2009. The number of days of inventory on hand remained flat at 62 days at August 1, 2010 compared to November 1, 2009. We use the current quarter cost of products sold in our calculation of days on hand of inventory. The increase in inventory dollar amount is attributable to anticipated increased demand.

Current liabilities decreased from $854 million at the end of fiscal year 2009 to $528 million at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 mainly due to the redemption of $364 million of long-term debt that was classified as current at November 1, 2009 (as it had been irrevocably called for redemption before the fiscal year end) and decreases in accrued interest. This decrease was offset by an increase in accounts payable and employee compensation and benefits. Accrued interest decreased $20 million or 80% from fiscal year 2009 mainly due to the debt redemption and semi-annual interest payments made during the first nine months of fiscal year 2010. Accounts payable increased to $172 million from $154 million at the end of fiscal year 2009 mainly due to timing of disbursements and higher volume of purchases related to increase in revenue. Employee compensation and benefits increased to $69 million from $55 million at fiscal year 2009 mainly due to our employee bonus program related to our overall profitability.

Net cash provided by operating activities during the nine months ended August 2, 2009 was $87 million. The net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to non-cash charges of $120 million for depreciation and amortization offset by net loss of $23 million.

Accounts receivable at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2009 decreased slightly by $6 million, from the amount at the end of fiscal year 2008. The number of days sales outstanding increased to 45 days at August 2, 2009 from 37 days at November 2, 2008 due to linearity of revenue. We use the corresponding quarter revenue in our calculation of number of days sales outstanding. Inventory decreased to $153 million at August 2, 2009 from $188 million at the end of fiscal year 2008. The number of days of inventory on hand was 65 days and 68 days at November 2, 2008 and August 2, 2009. The inventory balance at the end of fiscal year 2008 was higher mainly due to seasonality. We use the corresponding quarter cost of products sold in our calculation of days on hand of inventory.

Current liabilities decreased from $330 million at the end of fiscal year 2008 to $248 million at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2009 mainly due to the decrease in employee compensation and benefit accruals attributable to payments under our employee bonus plans. The decrease was also attributable to the decrease in accounts payable from fiscal year 2008 due to timing of disbursements.

 

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Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 was $56 million, primarily due to purchases of property, plant and equipment of $49 million and $8 million related to a business acquisition.

Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended August 2, 2009 was $42 million. The net cash used in investing activities was primarily due to purchases of property, plant and equipment of $37 million and $7 million related to a business acquisition.

Financing Activities

Net cash used in financing activities for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 was $364 million. The net cash used in financing activities was principally from the redemption of $318 million in principal amount of senior fixed rate notes and $46 million principal amount of senior floating rate notes. Net cash was not affected significantly by financing activities for the nine months ended August 2, 2009.

Indebtedness

As of August 1, 2010, we had $230 million aggregate principal amount of our senior subordinated notes outstanding and $6 million of capital lease obligations. At such date, we had an additional $339 million of borrowing capacity available under our revolving credit facility (after taking into account $11 million of outstanding letters of credit, which reduce the amount available under our revolving credit facility on a dollar for dollar basis).

Contractual Commitments

Purchase Commitments. At August 1, 2010, we had unconditional purchase obligations of $52 million for fiscal year 2010 and none thereafter. These unconditional purchase obligations include agreements to purchase goods or services that are enforceable and legally binding on us and that specify all significant terms, including fixed or minimum quantities to be purchased, fixed, minimum or variable price provisions and the approximate timing of the transaction. Purchase obligations exclude agreements that are cancelable without penalty.

Debt. At August 1, 2010, we had debt obligations of $230 million. Estimated future interest expense payments related to debt obligations at August 1, 2010 were $7 million for the remainder of 2010, $29 million for 2011, $28 million for 2012, and $27 million each for 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively and $2 million thereafter. Estimated future interest expense payments include interest payments on our outstanding notes, commitment fees, and letter of credit fees. See Note 5 to the Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

There were no other substantial changes to our contractual commitments during the first nine months of fiscal year 2010 from those disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

We had no material off-balance sheet arrangements at August 1, 2010 as defined in Item 303(a)(4)(ii) of SEC Regulation S-K.

Accounting Changes and Recent Accounting Standards

For a description of accounting changes and recent accounting standards, including the expected dates of adoption and estimated effects, if any, on our unaudited consolidated condensed financial statements, see Note 1 to the Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

 

Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

Refer to Part II, Item 7A. “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk,” in our 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-K. There have been no material changes in market risk from the information reported in our 2009 Annual Report on Form 10-K other than those noted below.

 

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Foreign Currency Derivative Instruments

Although a majority of our revenue and operating expenses is denominated in U.S. dollars, and we prepare our financial statements in U.S. dollars in accordance with GAAP, a portion of our revenue and operating expenses is in foreign currencies. Our revenues, costs and expenses and monetary assets and liabilities are exposed to changes in currency exchange rates as a result of our global operating and financing activities. To mitigate the exposures resulting from the changes in the exchange rates of these currencies, we enter into foreign exchange forward contracts to hedge a portion of these exposures. Contracts that meet accounting criteria are designated at inception as hedges of the related foreign currency exposures, which include committed and anticipated transactions that are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. The criteria for designating a derivative as a hedge include the assessment of the instrument’s effectiveness in risk reduction, matching of the derivative instrument to its underlying transaction, and the assessment of the probability that the underlying transaction will occur. Our foreign exchange forward contracts generally mature within three to six months. We do not use derivative financial instruments for speculative or trading purposes. As of August 1, 2010, there were no foreign exchange forward contracts outstanding.

 

Item 4. Controls and Procedures

(a) Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures. Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer, or CEO, and Chief Financial Officer, or CFO, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of August 1, 2010. We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are intended to ensure that the information required to be disclosed in our Exchange Act filings is properly and timely recorded, processed, summarized and reported. These disclosure controls and procedures are also intended to ensure that information is accumulated and communicated to management, including our CEO and CFO, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures. Based on this evaluation, our CEO and CFO concluded that, as of August 1, 2010, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, our management recognized that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving their desired control objectives, and our management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

(b) Changes in Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting. There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rule 13a-15(d) and 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred during the period covered by this report that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

 

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PART II—OTHER INFORMATION

 

Item 1. Legal Proceedings

From time to time, we are involved in litigation that we believe is of the type common to companies engaged in our line of business, including commercial disputes and employment issues. As of the date of this filing, we are not involved in any pending legal proceedings that we believe would likely have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. However, certain pending disputes involve claims by third parties that our activities infringe their patent, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights. These claims generally involve the demand by a third-party that we cease the manufacture, use or sale of the allegedly infringing products, processes or technologies and/or pay substantial damages or royalties for past, present and future use of the allegedly infringing intellectual property. For example, on July 23, 2009, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. filed a complaint against us and certain of our subsidiaries in the U.S. District Court, District of Arizona seeking declaratory judgment that four of our patents relating to RF filter technology used in our wireless products are invalid and, if valid, that TriQuint’s products do not infringe any of those patents. In addition, TriQuint claims that certain of our wireless products infringe three of its patents. TriQuint is seeking damages in an unspecified amount, treble damages for alleged willful infringement, attorneys fees and injunctive relief. We filed our answer and initial counterclaim on September 17, 2009, denying infringement, asserting the invalidity of TriQuint’s patents and asserting infringement by TriQuint of ten Avago patents and filed additional counterclaims on March 25, 2010 for the misappropriation of Avago trade secrets. On October 16, 2009, TriQuint filed its answer to our initial counterclaim, denying infringement and filed an antitrust counterclaim and counterclaims for declaratory judgment of non infringement and invalidity. While the court dismissed TriQuint’s antitrust counterclaims on procedural grounds on March 16, 2010, TriQuint has since filed a motion to file an amended pleading for its anti-trust claims, which was granted on August 3, 2010. We intend to defend this lawsuit vigorously, which actions may include the assertion by us of additional claims or counterclaims against TriQuint related to our intellectual property portfolio.

In addition, on February 8, 2010, PixArt Imaging Inc. filed an action against us in the U.S District Court, Northern District of California seeking a determination of whether PixArt is licensed to use our portfolio of patents for optical finger navigation products pursuant to an existing cross-license agreement between us and PixArt, which license is limited to optical mouse and optical mouse trackball products. We did not license to PixArt our patents for optical finger navigation products. We intend to defend this action vigorously and to seek to have the scope of the cross-license agreement properly construed by the court as excluding such products. We also filed a counterclaim against PixArt on March 31, 2010, asserting that PixArt has breached the terms of the cross-license agreement between the parties. We are seeking a determination that PixArt is not licensed to use our portfolio of patents for optical finger navigation products, damages in an unspecified amount, termination for breach, or rescission, of the license agreement and attorneys fees.

On March 15, 2010 we filed a patent infringement action against ST Microelectronics NV in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of four of our patents related to optical navigation devices. We amended the complaint on July 6, 2010 adding infringement of a fifth optical navigation related patent to the action. We are seeking injunctive relief, damages in an unspecified amount, treble damages for willful infringement and attorneys fees. In response, ST Microelectronics filed a patent infringement action against us in the Northern District of Texas alleging that our sales of certain optical navigation devices infringed two ST Microelectronics’ patents. ST Microelectronics is seeking injunctive relief and damages in an unspecified amount. We intend to defend this lawsuit vigorously, and future actions may include the assertion by us of additional claims or counterclaims against ST Microelectronics related to our intellectual property portfolio.

Claims that our products or processes infringe or misappropriate any third-party intellectual property rights (including claims arising through our contractual indemnification of our customers) often involve highly complex, technical issues, the outcome of which is inherently uncertain. Moreover, from time to time we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property rights. Regardless of the merit or resolution of any such litigation, complex intellectual property litigation is generally costly and diverts the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel.

 

Item 1A. Risk Factors

A description of the risk factors associated with our business is set forth below. We review and, where applicable, update our risk factors each quarter. The description set forth below supersedes the description of the risk factors previously disclosed in Part II, Item 1A of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended May 2, 2010. These risk factors, which could materially affect our business, financial conditions or results of operations, are not the only risks that we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial may also adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 

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Risks Related to Our Business

The recent economic downturn and financial crisis has negatively affected our business and continuing poor economic conditions may negatively affect our future business, results of operations, and financial condition.

The recent global economic downturn and financial crisis have led to slower economic activity, unemployment, concerns about inflation and energy costs, decreased business and consumer confidence, reduced corporate profits and capital spending, adverse business conditions and lower levels of liquidity in many financial markets. The global recession also led to reduced customer spending in the semiconductor market and in our target markets during 2009, made it difficult for our customers, our vendors and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and caused U.S. and foreign businesses to slow spending on our products. While there are signs of recovery in many areas of the global economy, including in the semiconductor industry, continuing poor or worsening global economic conditions, including as a result of conditions in Europe, or a slowdown of an economic recovery, may cause additional reductions in customer spending and could lead to the insolvency of key suppliers resulting in product delays, lead to customer insolvencies, and also result in counterparty failures that may negatively impact our treasury operations. Our business, financial condition and result of operations were negatively affected in prior periods as a result of the recent downturn, and, if the downturn continues or worsens, could be materially adversely affected in future periods.

We operate in the highly cyclical semiconductor industry, which is subject to significant downturns.

The semiconductor industry is highly cyclical and is characterized by constant and rapid technological change and price erosion, evolving technical standards, short product life cycles (for semiconductors and for the end-user products in which they are used) and wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. From time to time, these and other factors, together with changes in general economic conditions, cause significant upturns and downturns in the industry in general and in our business in particular. For example, the global semiconductor market experienced a very substantial decline in 2001 and experienced a significant decline in 2009 due to the recent economic downturn, in each case beyond the declines experienced in the typical cycles experienced by the semiconductor industry due in large part to deteriorating global economic conditions. Periods of industry downturns, including the recent economic downturn, have been characterized by diminished demand for end-user products, high inventory levels, underutilization of manufacturing capacity, changes in revenue mix and accelerated erosion of average selling prices, resulting in, an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We expect our business to continue to be subject to cyclical downturns even as overall economic conditions improve.

Our operating results are subject to substantial quarterly and annual fluctuations.

Our revenues and operating results have fluctuated in the past and are likely to fluctuate in the future. These fluctuations may occur on a quarterly and annual basis and are due to a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include, among others:

 

   

changes in end-user demand for the products manufactured and sold by our customers;

 

   

the timing of receipt, reduction or cancellation of significant orders by customers;

 

   

fluctuations in the levels of component inventories held by our customers;

 

   

the gain or loss of significant customers;

 

   

market acceptance of our products and our customers’ products;

 

   

our ability to develop, introduce and market new products and technologies on a timely basis;

 

   

the timing and extent of product development costs;

 

   

new product announcements and introductions by us or our competitors;

 

   

incurrence of research and development and related new product expenditures;

 

   

seasonality or cyclical fluctuations in our markets;

 

   

currency fluctuations;

 

   

utilization of our internal manufacturing facilities;

 

   

fluctuations in manufacturing yields;

 

   

significant warranty claims, including those not covered by our suppliers or our insurers;

 

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availability and cost of raw materials from our suppliers;

 

   

changes in our product mix or customer mix;

 

   

intellectual property disputes;

 

   

loss of key personnel or the shortage of available skilled workers;

 

   

the effects of competitive pricing pressures, including decreases in average selling prices of our products; and

 

   

changes in our tax incentive arrangements or structure, which may adversely affect our net tax expense in any quarter in which such an event occurs.

The foregoing factors are difficult to forecast, and these, as well as other factors, could materially adversely affect our quarterly or annual operating results. In addition, a significant amount of our operating expenses are relatively fixed in nature due to our significant sales, research and development and internal manufacturing overhead costs. Any failure to adjust spending quickly enough to compensate for a revenue shortfall could magnify the adverse impact of such revenue shortfall on our results of operations. As a result, we believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our revenue and operating results may not be meaningful or a reliable indicator of our future performance. If our operating results in one or more future quarters fail to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors, an immediate and significant decline in the trading price of our ordinary shares may occur.

If we do not adapt to technological changes in the semiconductor industry, we could lose customers or market share.

The semiconductor industry is subject to constant and rapid changes in technology, frequent new product introductions, short product life cycles, rapid product obsolescence and evolving technical standards. Technological developments may reduce the competitiveness of our products and require unbudgeted upgrades that could be expensive and time consuming to implement. Our products could become obsolete sooner than we expect because of faster than anticipated, or unanticipated, changes in one or more of the technologies related to our products. Furthermore, we continually evaluate expenditures for research and development and must choose among alternative technologies based on our expectations of future market growth and other factors. We may be unable to develop and introduce new or enhanced products that satisfy customer requirements and achieve market acceptance in a timely manner or at all, the technologies where we have focused our research and development expenditures may not become commercially successful, and we may be unable to anticipate new industry standards and technological changes. We also may not be able to respond successfully to new product announcements and introductions by competitors. If we fail to adapt successfully to technological changes or fail to obtain access to important new technologies, we may be unable to retain customers, attract new customers or sell new products to our existing customers.

Dependence on contract manufacturing and outsourcing other portions of our supply chain may adversely affect our ability to bring products to market and damage our reputation.

We operate a primarily outsourced manufacturing business model that principally utilizes third-party foundry and assembly and test capabilities. As a result, we are highly reliant on third-party foundry wafer fabrication and assembly and test capacity, including sole sourcing for many components or products. For certain of our product families, substantially all of our revenue from those products is derived from semiconductors fabricated by external foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. and WIN Semiconductors Corp. We also use third-party contract manufacturers for a significant majority of our assembly and test operations, including Amertron Incorporated, Amkor Technology, and the Hana Microelectronics Public Company Ltd. group of companies. The ability and willingness of our contract manufacturers to perform is largely outside of our control. If one or more of our contract manufacturers or other outsourcers fails to perform its obligations in a timely manner or at satisfactory quality levels, our ability to bring products to market and our reputation could suffer. If one of our suppliers ceases to, or is unable to, manufacture such a component or supply is otherwise constrained, we may be forced to re-engineer a product or may fail to meet customer demand. In addition to discontinuing parts, suppliers may also extend lead times, limit supplies or increase prices due to capacity constraints or other factors. For example, in the event that manufacturing capacity is reduced or eliminated at one or more facilities, including as a response by contract manufacturers to cycles in the semiconductor industry, manufacturing could be disrupted, we could have difficulties fulfilling our customer orders and our net revenue could decline. In addition, if these third parties on whom we are highly reliant fail to deliver quality products and components on time and at reasonable prices, we could have difficulties fulfilling our customer orders and our net revenue could decline. In such events, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.

To the extent we rely on third-party manufacturing relationships, we face the following risks:

 

   

inability of our manufacturers to develop manufacturing methods appropriate for our products and their unwillingness to devote adequate capacity to produce our products;

 

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product and manufacturing costs that are higher than anticipated;

 

   

reduced control over product reliability and delivery schedules;

 

   

more complicated supply chains; and

 

   

time, expense and uncertainty in identifying and qualifying additional or replacement manufacturers.

Much of our outsourcing takes place in developing countries, and as a result may additionally be subject to geopolitical uncertainty. See “—Our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected by the political and economic conditions of the countries in which we conduct business and other factors related to our international operations.”

A prolonged disruption of our manufacturing facilities could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Although we operate using a primarily outsourced manufacturing business model, we do rely on the manufacturing facilities we own, in particular our fabrication facilities in Fort Collins, Colorado and Singapore. We maintain our internal fabrication facilities for products utilizing our innovative materials and processes, to protect our intellectual property and to develop the technology for manufacturing. A prolonged disruption or material malfunction of, interruption in or the loss of operations at one or more of our production facilities, especially our Fort Collins and Singapore facilities, or the failure to maintain our labor force at one or more of these facilities, would limit our capacity to meet customer demands and delay new product development until a replacement facility and equipment, if necessary, were found. The replacement of the manufacturing facility could take an extended amount of time before manufacturing operations could restart. The potential delays and costs resulting from these steps could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Unless we and our suppliers continuously improve manufacturing efficiency and quality, our financial performance could be adversely affected.

Manufacturing semiconductors involves highly complex processes that require advanced equipment. We and our suppliers, as well as our competitors, continuously modify these processes in an effort to improve yields and product performance. Defects or other difficulties in the manufacturing process can reduce yields and increase costs. Our manufacturing efficiency will be an important factor in our future financial performance, and we may be unable to maintain or increase our manufacturing efficiency to the same extent as our competitors. For products that we outsource manufacturing, our product yields and performance will be subject to the manufacturing efficiencies of our third-party suppliers.

From time to time, we and our suppliers have experienced difficulty in beginning production at new facilities, transferring production to other facilities, achieving and maintaining a high level of process quality and effecting transitions to new manufacturing processes, all of which have caused us to suffer delays in product deliveries or reduced yields. We and our suppliers may experience manufacturing problems in achieving acceptable yields or experience product delivery delays in the future as a result of, among other things, capacity constraints, construction delays, transferring production to other facilities, upgrading or expanding existing facilities or changing our process technologies, any of which could result in a loss of future revenues. Our results of operations could be adversely affected by any increase in costs related to increases in production capacity if revenues do not increase proportionately.

Winning business is subject to lengthy, competitive selection processes that require us to incur significant expense. Even if we begin a product design, a customer may decide to cancel or change its product plans, which could cause us to generate no revenues from a product and adversely affect our results of operations.

We are focused on winning competitive bid selection processes, known as “design wins,” to develop semiconductors for use in our customers’ products. These selection processes are typically lengthy and can require us to incur significant design and development expenditures and dedicate scarce engineering resources in pursuit of a single customer opportunity. We may not win the competitive selection process and may never generate any revenue despite incurring significant design and development expenditures. These risks are exacerbated by the fact that many of our products will likely have very short life cycles. Failure to obtain a design win sometimes prevents us from offering an entire generation of a product. This can result in lost revenues and could weaken our position in future competitive selection processes.

After winning a product design, we may experience delays in generating revenue from our products as a result of the lengthy development cycle typically required. In addition, a delay or cancellation of a customer’s plans could materially and adversely affect our financial results, as we may have incurred significant expense in the design process and generated no revenue. Finally, our customers’ failure to successfully market and sell their products could reduce demand for our products and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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We may be subject to claims of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights or demands that we license third-party technology, which could result in significant expense and loss of our intellectual property rights.

The semiconductor industry is characterized by companies holding large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets and by the vigorous pursuit, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. From time to time, third parties assert against us and our customers and distributors their patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to our business. For example, we are currently involved in a dispute with TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. in which, among other things, TriQuint is seeking a judgment that four of our patents relating to RF filter technology used in our wireless products are invalid and, if valid, that TriQuint’s products do not infringe any of those patents, and is claiming that certain of our wireless products infringe three of its patents. See Part II, Item 1. “Legal Proceedings” above for additional information regarding this dispute.

Claims that our products or processes infringe or misappropriate these rights, regardless of their merit or resolution, are frequently costly and divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel. In addition, many of our customer agreements and in some cases our asset sale agreements require us to indemnify our customers or purchasers for third-party intellectual property infringement claims, which have required and may in the future require that we defend those claims, and might require that we pay damages in the case of adverse rulings. Claims of this sort could also harm our relationships with our customers and might deter future customers from doing business with us. We do not know whether we will prevail in such proceedings given the complex technical issues and inherent uncertainties in intellectual property litigation. If any pending or future proceedings result in an adverse outcome, we could be required to:

 

   

cease the manufacture, use or sale of the infringing products, processes or technology;

 

   

pay substantial damages for past, present and future use of the infringing technology;

 

   

expend significant resources to develop non-infringing technology;

 

   

license technology from the third-party claiming infringement, which license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all;

 

   

enter into cross-licenses with our competitors, which could weaken our overall intellectual property portfolio;

 

   

indemnify customers or distributors;

 

   

pay substantial damages to our customers or end users to discontinue use or replace infringing technology with non-infringing technology; or

 

   

relinquish intellectual property rights associated with one or more of our patent claims, if such claims are held invalid or otherwise unenforceable.

Any of the foregoing results could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We utilize a significant amount of intellectual property in our business. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, our business could be adversely affected.

Our success depends in part upon our ability to protect our intellectual property. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets and similar intellectual property, as well as customary contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, employees and consultants, and through security measures to protect our trade secrets. We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights and there can be no assurance that, even with significant expenditures, we will be able to protect our intellectual property rights. We are unable to predict that:

 

   

any of the patents and pending patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, know-how or other intellectual property rights that we presently employ in our business will not lapse or be invalidated, circumvented, challenged, or, in the case of third-party intellectual property rights, licensed or sub-licensed to us, be licensed to others

 

   

our intellectual property rights will provide competitive advantages to us;

 

   

rights previously granted by third parties to intellectual property rights licensed or assigned to us, including portfolio cross-licenses, will not hamper our ability to assert our intellectual property rights against potential competitors or hinder the settlement of currently pending or future disputes;

 

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any of our pending or future patent, trademark or copyright applications will be issued or have the coverage originally sought; or

 

   

our intellectual property rights will be enforced in certain jurisdictions where competition may be intense or where legal protection may be weak.

In addition, our competitors or others may develop products or technologies that are similar or superior to our products or technologies, duplicate our products or technologies or design around our protected technologies. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may be unavailable or more limited in one or more relevant jurisdictions, relative to those protections available in the United States, or may not be applied for in one or more relevant jurisdictions. Moreover, from time to time we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property rights, including, in some cases, against third parties with whom we have ongoing relationships, such as customers and suppliers, and third parties may pursue litigation against us. For example, we have filed suit against with ST Microelectronics NV. in which, we are seeking a judgment that they have infringed five of our patents relating to optical navigation devices and they have counter-filed against us alleging that certain of our optical navigation devices infringe two of their patents. See Part II, Item 1. “Legal Proceedings” above for additional information regarding this dispute. An adverse decision in such types of legal action could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property rights and limit the value of our technology, including the loss of opportunities to license our technology to others or to collect royalty payments based upon successful protection and assertion of our intellectual property against others. In addition, such legal actions or adverse decisions could otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

From time to time we may need to obtain additional intellectual property licenses or renew existing license agreements. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed on acceptable terms or at all.

Competition in our industry could prevent us from growing our revenue and from raising prices to offset increases in costs.

The global semiconductor market is highly competitive. We compete in different target markets to various degrees on the basis of, among other things, quality, technical performance, price, product features, product system compatibility, system-level design capability, engineering expertise, responsiveness to customers, new product innovation, product availability, delivery timing and reliability, and customer sales and technical support. Current and prospective customers for our products evaluate our capabilities against the merits of our direct competitors. Some of our competitors are well established, have a more extensive product portfolio, have substantially greater market share and manufacturing, financial, research and development and marketing resources to pursue development, engineering, manufacturing, marketing and distribution of their products. In addition, many of our competitors have longer independent operating histories, greater presence in key markets, more comprehensive patent protection and greater name recognition. We compete with integrated device manufacturers, or IDMs, and fabless semiconductor companies as well as the internal resources of large, integrated OEMs. Our competitors range from large, international companies offering a wide range of semiconductor products to smaller companies specializing in narrow markets. We expect competition in the markets in which we participate to continue to increase as existing competitors improve or expand their product offerings. In addition, companies not currently in direct competition with us may introduce competing products in the future. Because our products are often building block semiconductors providing functions that in some cases can be integrated into more complex integrated circuits, or ICs, we also face competition from manufacturers of ICs, as well as customers that develop their own IC products. The competitive landscape is changing as a result of an increasing trend of consolidation within the industry, as some of our competitors have merged with or been acquired by other competitors while others have begun collaborating with each other. We expect this consolidation trend to continue.

Our ability to compete successfully depends on elements both within and outside of our control, including industry and general economic trends. During past periods of downturns in our industry, competition in the markets in which we operate intensified as manufacturers of semiconductors reduced prices in order to combat production overcapacity and high inventory levels. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial and other resources with which to withstand similar adverse economic or market conditions in the future.

We may be unable to make the substantial and productive research and development investments which are required to remain competitive in our business.

The semiconductor industry requires substantial investment in research and development in order to develop and bring to market new and enhanced technologies and products. In order to remain competitive, we anticipate that we will need to maintain or increase our levels of research and development expenditures, and we expect research and development expenses to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, due to the increasing complexity and number of products we plan to develop. We do not know whether we will have sufficient resources to maintain or increase the level of investment in research and development required to remain competitive. In addition, we cannot assure you that the technologies where we have focused our research and development expenditures will become commercially successful. If we are required to invest significantly greater resources than anticipated in our research and development efforts without a corresponding increase in revenue, our operating results could decline.

 

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Our business would be adversely affected by the departure of existing members of our senior management team or if our senior management team is unable to effectively implement our strategy.

Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of our senior management team, in particular, the services of Mr. Hock E. Tan, our President and Chief Executive Officer. None of our senior management is bound by written employment contracts to remain with us for a specified period. In addition, we do not currently maintain key person life insurance covering our senior management. The loss of any of our senior management could harm our ability to implement our business strategy and respond to the rapidly changing market conditions in which we operate.

If we are unable to attract, train and retain qualified personnel, especially our design and technical personnel, we may not be able to execute our business strategy effectively.

Our future success depends on our ability to retain, attract and motivate qualified personnel, including our management, sales and marketing, legal and finance, and especially our design and technical personnel. We do not know whether we will be able to retain all of these employees as we continue to pursue our business strategy. We have historically encountered difficulties in hiring and retaining qualified engineers because there is a limited pool of engineers with expertise in analog and optoelectronic semiconductor design. Competition for such personnel is intense in the semiconductor industry. As the source of our technological and product innovations, our design and technical personnel represent a significant asset. The loss of the services of key employees, especially our key design and technical personnel, or our inability to retain, attract and motivate qualified design and technical personnel, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to warranty claims, product recalls and product liability.

We are currently, and from time to time may be, subject to warranty or product liability claims that have lead and may in the future lead to significant expenses as we compensate affected customers for costs incurred related to product quality issues. For example, in the second quarter of 2009 we identified a product quality issue with a particular component that we took steps to correct, including notifying our customers and offering to replace such components. We are continuing our discussions with affected customers regarding this issue, and have compensated or otherwise rectified the issue with many of those customers. As at August 1, 2010, we have recorded $17 million in charges associated with this issue, including $11 million in the first half of fiscal 2010 and may incur additional charges as we continue to work with our customers to resolve the matter.

Although we maintain product liability insurance, such insurance is subject to significant deductibles and there is no guarantee that such insurance will be available or adequate to protect against all such claims, or we may elect to self-insure with respect to certain matters. We may incur costs and expenses in the event of any recall of a customer’s product containing one of our devices. The process of identifying a recalled product in devices that have been widely distributed may be lengthy and require significant resources, and we may incur significant replacement costs, contract damage claims from our customers and reputational harm. Costs or payments made in connection with warranty and product liability claims and product recalls could materially affect our financial condition and results of operations.

The complexity of our products could result in unforeseen delays or expenses or undetected defects or bugs, which could adversely affect the market acceptance of new products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers, and materially and adversely affect our operating costs.

Highly complex products such as the products that we offer, may contain defects and bugs when they are first introduced or as new versions are released. We have in the past experienced, and may in the future experience, these defects and bugs. If any of our products contain defects or bugs, or have reliability, quality or compatibility problems, we may not be able to successfully design workarounds. Consequently, our reputation may be damaged and customers may be reluctant to buy our products, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers, attract new customers, and our financial results. In addition, these defects or bugs could interrupt or delay sales to our customers. To resolve these problems, we may have to invest significant capital and other resources. Although our products are tested by our suppliers, our customers and ourselves, it is possible that our new products will contain defects or bugs. If any of these problems are not found until after we have commenced commercial production of a new product, we may be required to incur additional development costs and product recall, repair or replacement costs. These problems may also result in claims against us by our customers or others. In addition, these problems may divert our technical and other resources from other development efforts, we would likely lose, or experience a delay in, market acceptance of the affected product or products, and we could lose credibility with our current and prospective customers. As a result, our financial results could be materially and adversely affected.

 

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Failure to adjust our supply chain volume due to changing market conditions or failure to estimate our customers’ demand could adversely affect our results of operations.

We make significant decisions, including determining the levels of business that we will seek and accept, production schedules, levels of reliance on contract manufacturing and outsourcing, personnel needs and other resource requirements, based on our estimates of customer requirements. The short-term nature of commitments by many of our customers and the possibility of rapid changes in demand for their products reduces our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements. Our results of operations could be harmed if we are unable to adjust our supply chain volume to address market fluctuations, including those caused by the seasonal or cyclical nature of the markets in which we operate. The sale of our products is dependent, to a large degree, on customers whose industries are subject to seasonal or cyclical trends in the demand for their products. For example, the consumer electronics market is particularly volatile and is subject to seasonality related to the holiday selling season, making demand difficult to anticipate. On occasion, customers may require rapid increases in production, which can challenge our resources and reduce margins. During a market upturn, we may not be able to purchase sufficient supplies or components, or secure sufficient contract manufacturing capacity, to meet increasing product demand, which could harm our reputation, prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities and reduce revenue growth. In addition, some parts are not readily available from alternate suppliers due to their unique design or the length of time necessary for design work.

In order to secure components for the production of products, we may continue to enter into non-cancelable purchase commitments with vendors or make advance payments to suppliers, which could reduce our ability to adjust our inventory or expense levels to declining market demands. Prior commitments of this type have resulted in an excess of parts when demand for our products has decreased. Downturns in the semiconductor industry have in the past caused, and may in the future cause, our customers to reduce significantly the amount of products ordered from us. If demand for our products is less than we expect, we may experience excess and obsolete inventories and be forced to incur additional charges. Because certain of our sales, research and development and internal manufacturing overhead expenses are relatively fixed, a reduction in customer demand may decrease our gross margins and operating income.

Our operating results and financial condition could be harmed if the markets into which we sell our products decline.

Visibility into our markets is limited. As has been the case in the recent economic downturn, any decline in our customers’ markets would likely result in a reduction in demand for our products and make it more difficult to collect on outstanding amounts due to us. For example, if the Asian market does not continue to grow as anticipated or if the semiconductor market declines, our results of operations will likely continue to suffer. In such an environment, pricing pressures could intensify and, if we were unable to respond quickly, could significantly reduce our gross margins. To the extent we cannot offset recessionary periods or periods of reduced growth that may occur in these markets through increased market share or otherwise, our net revenue may decline and our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer. Pricing pressures and competition are especially intense in semiconductor-related industries, which could prevent achievement of our long-term financial goals and could require us to implement additional cost-cutting measures. Furthermore, projected industry growth rates may not be as forecasted, which could result in spending on process and product development well ahead of market requirements, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The demands or loss of one or more of our significant customers may adversely affect our business.

Some of our customers are material to our business and results of operations. During the nine months ended August 1, 2010, one customer accounted for 10% or more of our net revenue, and our top 10 customers, which included five distributors, collectively accounted for 57% of our net revenue. During the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, no customer accounted for 10% or more of our net revenue, and our top 10 customers, which included four distributors, collectively accounted for 60% of our net revenue. We believe our top customers’ purchasing power has given them the ability to make greater demands on their suppliers, including us. We expect this trend to continue, which we expect will result in our results of operations becoming increasingly sensitive to deterioration in the financial condition of, or other adverse developments related to, one or more of our significant customers. Although we believe that our relationships with our major customers are good, we generally do not have long-term contracts with any of them, which is typical of our industry. As a result, although our customers provide indications of their product needs and purchases on an annual basis, they generally purchase our products on a weekly or daily basis and the relationship, as well as particular orders, can be terminated at any time. The loss of any of our major customers, or any substantial reduction in sales to any of these customers, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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We generally do not have any long-term supply contracts with our contract manufacturers or materials suppliers and may not be able to obtain the products or raw materials required for our business, which could have a material adverse affect on our business.

We either obtain the products we need for our business from third-party contract manufacturers or we obtain the materials we need for our products from suppliers. We purchase a significant portion of our semiconductor materials from a few suppliers. For the nine months ended August 1, 2010, we purchased 54% of the materials for our manufacturing processes from eight suppliers. For the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, we purchased 52% of the materials for our manufacturing processes from eight suppliers. Substantially all of our purchases are on a purchase order basis, and we have not generally entered into long-term contracts with our contract manufacturers or suppliers. In the event that these purchase orders or relationships with suppliers are terminated, we cannot obtain sufficient quantities of raw materials at reasonable prices, the quality of the material deteriorates, we fail to satisfy our customers’ requirements or we are not able to pass on higher materials costs to our customers, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely impacted. For example, during fiscal year 2008, we experienced an increase in our cost of products sold as a result of higher energy costs.

Our manufacturing processes rely on many materials, including silicon and GaAs wafers, copper lead frames, mold compound, ceramic packages and various chemicals and gases. From time to time, suppliers may extend lead times, limit supplies or increase prices due to capacity constraints or other factors. Although we believe that our current supplies of materials are adequate, shortages could occur in various essential materials due to interruption of supply or increased demand in the industry.

We use third-party contractor manufacturers for most of our manufacturing activities, primarily for wafer fabrication and module assembly and test services. Our agreements with these manufacturers typically require us to forecast product needs, commit to purchase services consistent with these forecasts and may require other commitments in the early stages of the relationship. Our operations could be adversely affected in the event that these contractual relationships were disrupted or terminated, the cost of such services increased significantly, the quality of the services provided deteriorated, our forecasts proved to be materially incorrect or capacity is consumed by our competitors.

We rely on third parties to provide services necessary for the operation of our business. Any failure of one or more of our vendors to provide these services could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We rely on third-party vendors to provide critical services, including, among other things, certain services related to accounting, billing, human resources, information technology, or IT, network development and network monitoring. We depend on these vendors to ensure that our corporate infrastructure will consistently meet our business requirements. The ability of these third-party vendors to successfully provide reliable, high quality services is subject to technical and operational uncertainties that are beyond our control. While we may be entitled to damages if our vendors fail to perform under their agreements with us, our agreements with these vendors limit the amount of damages we may receive. In addition, we do not know whether we will be able to collect on any award of damages or that any such damages would be sufficient to cover the actual costs we would incur as a result of any vendor’s failure to perform under its agreement with us. Any failure of our corporate infrastructure could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Upon expiration or termination of any of our agreements with third-party vendors, we may not be able to replace the services provided to us in a timely manner or on terms and conditions, including service levels and cost, that are favorable to us and a transition from one vendor to another vendor could subject us to operational delays and inefficiencies until the transition is complete.

Our gross margin is dependent on a number of factors, including our product mix and level of capacity utilization.

Our gross margin is highly dependent on product mix, with proprietary products typically providing higher gross margin than other products. A shift in sales mix away from our higher margin products could adversely affect our future gross margin percentages. In addition, semiconductor manufacturing requires significant capital investment, leading to high fixed costs, including depreciation expense. Although we outsource a significant portion of our manufacturing activities, we do retain some semiconductor fabrication facilities. If we are unable to utilize our owned fabrication facilities at a high level, the fixed costs associated with these facilities will not be fully absorbed, resulting in higher average unit costs and lower gross margins. In the past, we have experienced periods where our gross margins declined due to, among other things, reduced factory utilization resulting from reduced customer demand, reduced selling prices and a change in product mix towards lower margin devices. Increased competition and the existence of product alternatives, more complex engineering requirements, lower demand and other factors may lead to further price erosion, lower revenues and lower margins for us in the future.

 

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Our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected by the political and economic conditions of the countries in which we conduct business and other factors related to our international operations.

We sell our products throughout the world. In addition, approximately 67% of our employees are located outside of the United States. Multiple factors relating to our international operations and to particular countries in which we operate could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These factors include:

 

   

changes in political, regulatory, legal or economic conditions;

 

   

restrictive governmental actions, such as restrictions on the transfer or repatriation of funds and foreign investments and trade protection measures, including export duties and quotas and customs duties and tariffs;

 

   

disruptions of capital and trading markets;

 

   

changes in import or export licensing requirements;

 

   

transportation delays;

 

   

civil disturbances or political instability;

 

   

geopolitical turmoil, including terrorism, war or political or military coups;

 

   

changes in labor standards;

 

   

limitations on our ability under local laws to protect our intellectual property;

 

   

nationalization of businesses and expropriation of assets;

 

   

changes in tax laws;

 

   

currency fluctuations, which may result in our products becoming too expensive for foreign customers or foreign-sourced materials and services becoming more expensive for us; and

 

   

difficulty in obtaining distribution and support.

A majority of our products are produced and sourced in Asia, including in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Any conflict or uncertainty in these countries, including due to political or civil unrest or public health or safety concerns could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if the government of any country in which our products are manufactured or sold sets technical standards for products manufactured in or imported into their country that are not widely shared, it may lead certain of our customers to suspend imports of their products into that country, require manufacturers in that country to manufacture products with different technical standards and disrupt cross-border manufacturing relationships which, in each case, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, our subsidiaries may require future equity-related financing, and any capital contributions to certain of our subsidiaries may require the approval of the relevant authorities in the jurisdiction in which the subsidiary is incorporated. The approvals are required from the investment commissions or similar agency of the particular jurisdiction and relate to any initial or additional equity investment by foreign entities in local corporations. Our failure to obtain the required approvals and our resulting inability to provide such equity-related financing or capital contributions could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to currency exchange risks that could adversely affect our operations.

Although a majority of our revenue and operating expenses is denominated in U.S. dollars, and we prepare our financial statements in U.S. dollars in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, a portion of our revenue and operating expenses is in foreign currencies. As a result, we are subject to currency risks that could adversely affect our operations, including:

 

   

risks resulting from changes in currency exchange rates and the implementation of exchange controls; and

 

   

limitations on our ability to reinvest earnings from operations in one country to fund the capital needs of our operations in other countries.

Changes in exchange rates will result in increases or decreases in our costs and earnings, and may also affect the book value of our assets located outside the United States and the amount of our equity. Although we seek to minimize our currency exposure by engaging in hedging transactions where we deem it appropriate, we do not know whether our efforts will be successful.

 

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If we suffer loss or significant damage to our factories, facilities or distribution system due to catastrophe, our operations could be seriously harmed.

Our factories, facilities and distribution system, and those of our contract manufacturers, are subject to risk of catastrophic loss due to fire, flood, or other natural or man-made disasters. The majority of our facilities and those of our contract manufacturers are located in the Pacific Rim region, a region with above average seismic and severe weather activity. Any catastrophic loss or significant damage to any of these facilities would likely disrupt our operations, delay production, shipments and revenue and result in significant expenses to repair or replace the facility. In particular, any catastrophic loss at our Fort Collins, Colorado and Singapore facilities would materially and adversely affect our business.

If the tax incentive or tax holiday arrangements we have negotiated in Singapore and other jurisdictions change or cease to be in effect or applicable, or if our assumptions and interpretations regarding tax laws and incentive or holiday arrangements prove to be incorrect, the amount of corporate income taxes we have to pay could significantly increase.

We have structured our operations to maximize the benefit from various tax incentives and tax holidays extended to us in various jurisdictions to encourage investment or employment. For example, we have obtained several tax incentives from the Singapore Economic Development Board, an agency of the Government of Singapore, which provide that certain classes of income we earn in Singapore are subject to tax holidays or reduced rates of Singapore income tax. Each such tax incentive is separate and distinct from the others, and may be granted, withheld, extended, modified, truncated, complied with or terminated independently without any effect on the other incentives. In order to retain these tax benefits in Singapore, we must meet certain operating conditions specific to each incentive relating to, among other things, maintenance of a treasury function, a corporate headquarters function, specified intellectual property activities and specified manufacturing activities in Singapore. Some of these operating conditions are subject to phase-in periods through 2015. The Singapore tax incentives are presently scheduled to expire at various dates generally between 2012 and 2015, subject in certain cases to potential extensions. Absent such tax incentives, the corporate income tax rate in Singapore would be 17% commencing from the 2010 year of assessment. For the fiscal years ended October 31, 2007, November 2, 2008 and November 1, 2009, the effect of all these tax incentives, in the aggregate, was to reduce the overall provision for income taxes from what it otherwise would have been in such year by approximately $19 million, $24 million and $17 million, respectively. The tax incentives that we have negotiated in other jurisdictions are also subject to our compliance with various operating and other conditions. If we cannot or elect not to comply with the operating conditions included in any particular tax incentive, we will lose the related tax benefits and could be required to refund material tax benefits previously realized by us with respect to that incentive and, depending on the incentive at issue, could likely be required to modify our operational structure and tax strategy. Any such modified structure or strategy may not be as beneficial to us from an income tax expense or operational perspective as the benefits provided under the present tax concession arrangements.

Our interpretations and conclusions regarding the tax incentives are not binding on any taxing authority, and if our assumptions about tax and other laws are incorrect or if these tax incentives are substantially modified or rescinded we could suffer material adverse tax and other financial consequences, which would increase our expenses, reduce our profitability and adversely affect our cash flows. In addition, taxable income in any jurisdiction is dependent upon acceptance of our operational practices and intercompany transfer pricing by local tax authorities as being on an arm’s length basis. Due to inconsistencies in application of the arm’s length standard among taxing authorities, as well as lack of adequate treaty-based protection, transfer pricing challenges by tax authorities could, if successful, substantially increase our income tax expense.

The enactment of legislation implementing changes in U.S. taxation of international business activities or the adoption of other tax reform policies could materially impact our financial position and results of operations.

Several tax bills have been introduced to reform U.S. taxation of international business activities. Depending on the final form of legislation enacted, if any, these consequences may be significant for us due to the large scale of our international business activities. If any of these proposals are enacted into legislation, they could have material adverse consequences on the amount of tax we pay and thereby on our financial position and results of operations.

We may pursue acquisitions, dispositions, investments and joint ventures, which could affect our results of operations.

We have made and expect to continue to make acquisitions of, and investments in, businesses that offer complementary products, services and technologies, augment our market coverage, or enhance our technological capabilities. We may also enter into strategic alliances or joint ventures to achieve these goals. We cannot assure you that we will be able to identify suitable acquisition, investment, alliance, or joint venture opportunities or that we will be able to consummate any such transactions or relationships on terms and conditions acceptable to us, or that such transactions or relationships will be successful.

 

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These transactions or any other acquisitions or dispositions involve risks and uncertainties. For example, the integration of acquired businesses may not be successful and could result in disruption to other parts of our business. In addition, the integration may require that we incur significant restructuring charges. To integrate acquired businesses, we must implement our management information systems, operating systems and internal controls, and assimilate and manage the personnel of the acquired operations. The difficulties of the integrations may be further complicated by such factors as geographic distances, lack of experience operating in the geographic market or industry sector of the acquired business, delays and challenges associated with integrating the business with our existing businesses, diversion of management’s attention from daily operations of the business, potential loss of key employees and customers of the acquired business, the potential for deficiencies in internal controls at the acquired or combined business, performance problems with the acquired business’ technology, difficulties in entering markets in which we have no or limited direct prior experience, exposure to unanticipated liabilities of the acquired business, insufficient revenues to offset increased expenses associated with the acquisition, and our potential inability to achieve the growth prospects and synergies expected from any such acquisition. Even when an acquired business has already developed and marketed products, there can be no assurance that product enhancements will be made in a timely fashion or that all pre-acquisition due diligence will have identified all material issues that might arise with respect to such acquired assets.

Any acquisition may also cause us to assume liabilities, acquire goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets that will be subject to impairment testing and potential impairment charges, incur amortization expense related to certain intangible assets, increase our expenses and working capital requirements, and subject us to litigation, which would reduce our return on invested capital. Failure to manage and successfully integrate the acquisitions we make could materially harm our business and operating results.

Any future acquisitions may require additional debt or equity financing, which, in the case of debt financing, would increase our leverage and potentially affect our credit ratings, and in the case of equity financing, would be dilutive to our existing shareholders. Any downgrades in our credit ratings associated with an acquisition could adversely affect our ability to borrow by resulting in more restrictive borrowing terms. As a result of the foregoing, we also may not be able to complete acquisitions or strategic customer transactions in the future to the same extent as in the past, or at all. These and other factors could harm our ability to achieve anticipated levels of profitability at acquired operations or realize other anticipated benefits of an acquisition, and could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business is subject to various governmental regulations, and compliance with these regulations may cause us to incur significant expenses. If we fail to maintain compliance with applicable regulations, we may be forced to recall products and cease their manufacture and distribution, and we could be subject to civil or criminal penalties.

Our business is subject to various significant international and U.S. laws and other legal requirements, including packaging, product content, labor and import/export regulations. These regulations are complex, change frequently and have generally become more stringent over time. We may be required to incur significant expenses to comply with these regulations or to remedy violations of these regulations. Any failure by us to comply with applicable government regulations could result in cessation of our operations or portions of our operations, product recalls or impositions of fines and restrictions on our ability to conduct our operations. In addition, because many of our products are regulated or sold into regulated industries, we must comply with additional regulations in marketing our products.

Our products and operations are also subject to the rules of industrial standards bodies, like the International Standards Organization, as well as regulation by other agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. If we fail to adequately address any of these rules or regulations, our business could be harmed.

We must conform the manufacture and distribution of our semiconductors to various laws and adapt to regulatory requirements in all countries as these requirements change. If we fail to comply with these requirements in the manufacture or distribution of our products, we could be required to pay civil penalties, face criminal prosecution and, in some cases, be prohibited from distributing our products commercially until the products or component substances are brought into compliance.

We are subject to environmental, health and safety laws, which could increase our costs, restrict our operations and require expenditures that could have a material adverse affect on our results of operations and financial condition.

We are subject to a variety of international and U.S. laws and other legal requirements relating to the use, disposal, clean-up of and human exposure to, hazardous materials. Any failure by us to comply with environmental, health and safety requirements could result in the limitation or suspension of production or subject us to future liabilities in excess of our reserves. In addition, compliance with environmental, health and safety requirements could restrict our ability to expand our facilities or require us to acquire costly pollution control equipment, incur other significant expenses or modify our manufacturing processes. In the event of the discovery of new contamination, additional requirements with respect to existing contamination, or the imposition of other cleanup obligations for which we are responsible, we may be required to take remedial or other measures which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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We also face increasing complexity in our product design and procurement operations as we adjust to new requirements relating to the materials composition of our products, including the restrictions on lead and certain other substances in electronics that apply to specified electronics products sold in the European Union as of July 1, 2006 under the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. Other countries, such as the United States, China and Japan, have enacted or may enact laws or regulations similar to the EU legislation. Other environmental regulations may require us to reengineer our products to utilize components that are more environmentally compatible. Such reengineering and component substitution may result in excess inventory or other additional costs and could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

In addition to the costs of complying with environmental, health and safety requirements, we may in the future incur costs defending against environmental litigation brought by government agencies and private parties. We may be defendants in lawsuits brought by parties in the future alleging environmental damage, personal injury or property damage. A significant judgment against us could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In the last few years, there has been increased media scrutiny and associated reports focusing on a potential link between working in semiconductor manufacturing clean room environments and certain illnesses, primarily different types of cancers. Regulatory agencies and industry associations have begun to study the issue to see if any actual correlation exists. Because we utilize clean rooms, we may become subject to liability claims. In addition, these reports may also affect our ability to recruit and retain employees.

We cannot predict:

 

   

changes in environmental or health and safety laws or regulations;

 

   

the manner in which environmental or health and safety laws or regulations will be enforced, administered or interpreted;

 

   

our ability to enforce and collect under indemnity agreements and insurance policies relating to environmental liabilities; or

 

   

the cost of compliance with future environmental or health and safety laws or regulations or the costs associated with any future environmental claims, including the cost of clean-up of currently unknown environmental conditions.

We have taken significant restructuring charges in the past and may need to take material restructuring charges in the future.

During fiscal year 2009, we pursued a number of restructuring initiatives designed to reduce costs and increase revenue across our operations, in large part due to the global economic downturn and related decline in demand for our customers’ products. These initiatives included significant workforce reductions in certain areas as we realigned our business, establishing certain operations closer in location to our global customers, evaluating functions more efficiently performed through partnerships or other outside relationships and steps to attempt to further reduce our overhead costs. As a result of these initiatives, we incurred restructuring charges of $34 million in fiscal year 2009 and have incurred an aggregate of $4 million during the first three quarters of fiscal year 2010, including $2 million in the fiscal quarter ended August 1, 2010.

We may be required to take additional charges in the future as we continue to evaluate our operations and cost structures relative to general economic conditions, market demands, cost competitiveness, and our geographic footprint as it relates to our customers’ production requirements. We cannot assure you as to the timing or amount of any future restructuring charges. If we are required to take additional restructuring charges in the future, our operating results, financial condition, and cash flows may be adversely impacted. Additionally, there are other potential risks associated with our restructurings that could adversely affect us, such as delays encountered with the finalization and implementation of the restructuring activities, work stoppages, and the failure to achieve targeted cost savings.

We are subject to risks associated with our distributors’ product inventories and product sell-through.

We sell many of our products to customers through distributors who maintain their own inventory of our products for sale to dealers and end users. We recognize revenues for sales to distributors upon delivery to the distributor. We limit distributor return rights and we allow limited price adjustments on sales to distributors. We provide reserves for distributor rights related to these limited stock returns and price adjustments. Sales to distributors accounted for 41% and 33% of our net revenue for the nine months ended August 1, 2010 and the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, respectively.

 

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If these distributors are unable to sell an adequate amount of their inventory of our products in a given quarter to dealers and end users or if they decide to decrease their inventories for any reason, such as due to the recent global recession or due to any downturn in technology spending, our sales to these distributors and our revenues may decline. In addition, if distributors decide to purchase more inventory in any particular quarter, due to product availability or other reasons, than is required to satisfy end customer demand, inventory at our distributors may grow in such quarter, which could adversely affect our product revenues in a subsequent quarter as such distributors will likely reduce future orders until their inventory levels realign with end customer demand. For example, during the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, and in particular during the first fiscal quarter of that year, the semiconductor industry experienced a significant decline in demand. Consequently, our distributors experienced declines in their resales of our products and were carrying a higher level of inventories of our products than historical levels at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2009. As a result, our distributors decided to reduce their inventory of our products during the second fiscal quarter of 2009 and we also reduced our own inventory by $27 million or 15% in that quarter.

We also face the risk that our distributors may for other reasons have inventory levels of our products in excess of future anticipated sales. If such sales do not occur in the time frame anticipated by these distributors for any reason, these distributors may substantially decrease the amount of product they order from us in subsequent periods, which would harm our business.

Our reserve estimates associated with products stocked by our distributors are based largely on reports that our distributors provide to us on a monthly basis. To date, we believe this data has been generally accurate. To the extent that this resale and channel inventory data is inaccurate or not received in a timely manner, we may not be able to make reserve estimates for future periods accurately or at all.

We rely on third-party distributors and manufacturers’ representatives, as well as our employee sales representatives, and the failure of these representatives to perform as expected could reduce our future sales.

We sell many of our products to customers through distributors and manufacturers’ representatives, as well as through our employee sales representatives. We are unable to predict the extent to which our distributors and manufacturers’ representatives will be successful in marketing and selling our products. Moreover, many of our distributors and manufacturers’ representatives and distributors also market and sell competing products. Our relationships with our representatives and distributors may be terminated by either party at any time. As part of a change in strategy, in order to more effectively manage sales representatives’ performance, we recently terminated our relationships with a substantial number of our manufacturing representatives in the United States and have replaced them with additional employee representatives. Our future performance will depend, in part, on our ability to attract additional distributors or manufacturers’ representatives that will be able to market and support our products effectively, especially in markets in which we have not previously distributed our products, and on our ability to effectively transition sales efforts from our terminated U.S. manufacturing representatives to our employee sales representatives. If we cannot retain our current distributors or manufacturers’ representatives or recruit additional or replacement distributors or manufacturers’ representatives, or effectively manage the transition from our terminated U.S. manufacturing representatives to our employee sales representatives, our sales and operating results will be harmed.

The average selling prices of products in our markets have historically decreased rapidly and will likely do so in the future, which could harm our revenues and gross profits.

The products we develop and sell are used for high volume applications. As a result, the prices of those products have historically decreased rapidly. Gross profits on our products may be negatively affected by, among other things, pricing pressures from our customers, and the proportion of sales of our wireless and other products into consumer application markets, which are highly competitive and cost sensitive. In the past, we have reduced the average selling prices of our products in anticipation of future competitive pricing pressures, new product introductions by us or our competitors and other factors. Our gross profits and financial results will suffer if we are unable to offset any reductions in our average selling prices by increasing our sales volumes, reducing manufacturing costs, or developing new and higher value-added products on a timely basis.

 

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We are required to assess our internal control over financial reporting on an annual basis and any adverse findings from such assessment could result in a loss of investor confidence in our financial reports, significant expenses to remediate any internal control deficiencies.

We are required to assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually and disclosure controls and procedures quarterly. As required, we complied with Section 404(a) (management’s report on internal control over financial reporting) under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for the fiscal year ended November 1, 2009, and we will be required to comply with Section 404(b) (auditor’s attestation on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting) for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2010. The testing by our independent registered public accounting firm that must be performed for the fiscal year ending on October 31, 2010, may reveal deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses. A “material weakness” is a control deficiency, or combination of control deficiencies, that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected. If we fail to implement the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, we might be subject to sanctions or investigation by regulatory agencies such as the SEC. In addition, failure to comply with Section 404 or the disclosure by us of a material weakness may cause investors to lose confidence in our financial statements.

Remediation of a material weakness could require us to incur significant expense and if we fail to remedy any material weakness, our financial statements may be inaccurate, our ability to report our financial results on a timely and accurate basis may be adversely affected, our access to the capital markets may be restricted and we may be subject to sanctions or investigation by regulatory authorities, including the SEC or, in the case of Parent, The Nasdaq Global Select Market. We may also be required to restate our financial statements from prior periods.

Our indebtedness could adversely affect our financial health and our ability to raise additional capital to fund our operations, limit our ability to react to changes in the economy or our industry and prevent us from fulfilling our obligations under our indebtedness.

As at August 1, 2010, we had $234 million of long-term indebtedness outstanding, consisting of $230 million of our senior subordinated notes and $4 million in long-term obligations for capital leases. In addition, we had $11 million of letters of credit outstanding under our revolving credit facility.

Subject to restrictions in the indenture governing our senior subordinated notes and our senior credit agreement, we may incur additional indebtedness. We are currently able to borrow up to an additional $339 million under our revolving credit facility. Furthermore, borrowings under our senior credit agreement are secured by substantially all of our assets.

While we have recently significantly reduced the amount of our indebtedness by redeeming and repurchasing all of our senior notes and senior floating rate notes, if we were to borrow substantial amounts under our revolving credit facility or otherwise incur significant additional indebtedness, it could have important consequences including:

 

   

making it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations with respect to our senior subordinated notes, including our repurchase obligations;

 

   

increasing our vulnerability to adverse general economic and industry conditions;

 

   

requiring us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness, thereby reducing the availability of our cash flow to fund working capital, capital expenditures, research and development efforts, execution of our business strategy and other general corporate purposes;

 

   

limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in the economy and the semiconductor industry;

 

   

placing us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our competitors with less indebtedness;

 

   

exposing us to interest rate risk to the extent of our variable rate indebtedness;

 

   

limiting our ability to, or increasing the costs to, refinance indebtedness; and

 

   

making it more difficult to borrow additional funds in the future to fund working capital, capital expenditures and other purposes.

Any of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, financial conditions and results of operations.

 

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The indenture governing our senior subordinated notes and our senior credit agreement impose significant restrictions on our business.

The indenture governing our senior subordinated notes and the senior credit agreement contain a number of covenants imposing significant restrictions on our business. These restrictions may affect our ability to operate our business and may limit our ability to take advantage of potential business opportunities as they arise. The restrictions placed on us include limitations on our ability and the ability of our subsidiaries to:

 

   

incur additional indebtedness and issue ordinary or preferred shares;

 

   

pay dividends or make other distributions on, redeem or repurchase our shares or make other restricted payments;

 

   

make investments, acquisitions, loans or advances;

 

   

incur or create liens;

 

   

transfer or sell certain assets;

 

   

engage in sale and lease back transactions;

 

   

declare dividends or make other payments to us;

 

   

guarantee indebtedness;

 

   

engage in transactions with affiliates; and

 

   

consolidate, merge or transfer all or substantially all of our assets.

In addition, over a specified limit, our senior credit agreement requires us to meet a financial ratio test and restricts our ability to make capital expenditures or prepay certain other indebtedness. Our ability to meet the financial ratio test may be affected by events beyond our control, and we do not know whether we will be able to maintain this ratio.

The foregoing restrictions could limit our ability to plan for, or react to, changes in market conditions or our capital needs. We do not know whether we will be granted waivers under, or amendments to, our senior credit agreement or the indenture if for any reason we are unable to meet these requirements, or whether we will be able to refinance our indebtedness on terms acceptable to us, or at all.

The breach of any of these covenants or restrictions could result in a default under the indenture governing our senior subordinated notes or our senior credit agreement. In addition, our senior credit agreement and our indenture contain cross-default provisions which could thereby result in an acceleration of amounts outstanding under all those debt instruments if certain events of default occur under any one of them. If we are unable to repay these amounts, lenders having secured obligations, including the lenders under our senior credit agreement, could proceed against the collateral securing that debt. Any of the foregoing would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our Parent is a public company and the requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.

As a public company, our Parent is subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, listing requirements of The Nasdaq Global Select Market and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations increases our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increases demand on our systems and resources. The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We may need to hire more employees in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses. Furthermore, as we grow our business or acquire new businesses, our internal controls will become more complex and we may require significantly more resources to ensure our internal controls overall remain effective. Failure to implement required new or improved controls, or difficulties encountered in their implementation, could harm our operating results or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations.

 

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In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.

Being a public company makes it more expensive for our Parent and us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for our Parent and us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors and qualified executive officers.

Risks Relating to Investments in Singapore Companies

It may be difficult to enforce a judgment of U.S. courts for civil liabilities under U.S. federal securities laws against us, our directors or officers in Singapore.

We are incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Singapore, and certain of our officers and directors are or will be residents outside the United States. Moreover, a majority of our consolidated assets are located outside the United States. Although we are incorporated outside the United States, we have agreed to accept service of process in the United States through our agent designated for that purpose. Nevertheless, since a majority of the consolidated assets owned by us are located outside the United States, any judgment obtained in the United States against us may not be collectible within the United States.

There is no treaty between the United States and Singapore providing for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters and a final judgment for the payment of money rendered by any federal or state court in the United States based on civil liability, whether or not predicated solely upon the federal securities laws, would, therefore, not be automatically enforceable in Singapore. There is doubt whether a Singapore court may impose civil liability on us or our directors and officers who reside in Singapore in a suit brought in the Singapore courts against us or such persons with respect to a violation solely of the federal securities laws of the United States, unless the facts surrounding such a violation would constitute or give rise to a cause of action under Singapore law. Consequently, it may be difficult for investors to enforce against us, our directors or our officers in Singapore judgments obtained in the United States which are predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the federal securities laws of the United States.

Risks Relating to the Notes

Your right to receive payments on the senior subordinated notes is junior to that of lenders who have a security interest in our and our subsidiaries’ assets.

Our obligations under the senior subordinated notes and the related guarantees are unsecured, but our obligations under our revolving credit facility are secured by an interest in substantially all of our and our subsidiaries’ assets. If we are declared bankrupt or insolvent, or if we default under our revolving credit facility, the lenders could declare all of the funds borrowed thereunder, together with accrued interest, immediately due and payable. If we are unable to repay such indebtedness, the lenders could foreclose on the pledged assets to the exclusion of holders of the senior subordinated notes and the guarantees, even if an event of default exists under the indenture at such time. Furthermore, if the lenders foreclose on the equity interests in a subsidiary, that subsidiary will be released from its obligation under the senior subordinated notes automatically upon such sale, provided that such sale is made in compliance with the provisions of the indenture.

In any such event, because the senior subordinated notes are not secured, it is possible that there would be no assets remaining from which claims of the holders of notes could be satisfied or, if any assets remained, that they would be insufficient to satisfy such claims fully.

 

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Your right to receive payments on the senior subordinated notes is junior to the rights of the lenders under our revolving credit facility and all of our other senior debt and any of our future senior indebtedness.

The senior subordinated notes are general unsecured obligations that are junior in right of payment to all of our existing and future senior indebtedness. As of August 1, 2010, we had no senior indebtedness (excluding the senior subordinated notes and $11 million of outstanding letters of credit under our revolving credit facility), however, we had the ability to borrow up to an additional $339 million under our revolving credit facility, which borrowings would be secured by substantially all of our assets and would rank senior to the senior subordinated notes.

We may not pay principal, premium, if any, interest or other amounts on account of the senior subordinated notes in the event of a payment default or certain other defaults in respect of certain of our senior indebtedness, including debt under our revolving credit facility, unless the senior indebtedness has been paid in full or the default has been cured or waived. In addition, in the event of certain other defaults with respect to the senior indebtedness, we may not be permitted to pay any amount on account of the senior subordinated notes for a designated period of time.

Because of the subordination provisions in the senior subordinated notes, in the event of our bankruptcy, liquidation or dissolution, our assets will not be available to pay obligations under the senior subordinated notes until we have made all payments in cash on our senior indebtedness. We do not know whether sufficient assets will remain after all these payments have been made to make any payments on the senior subordinated notes, including payments of principal or interest when due.

Your right to receive payments on the senior subordinated notes is also junior to the rights of those unsecured creditors whose debts are mandatorily preferred by law.

Under Singapore insolvency laws and under the laws of the United States, in the event of the bankruptcy, liquidation or dissolution of our company, certain unsecured debts are mandatory preferred by law to other unsecured debts. These preferential unsecured debts include:

 

   

costs and expenses of the winding up;

 

   

amounts due to employees of our company in respect of wages, retrenchment benefits, workmen’s compensation and provident funds; and

 

   

all taxes due from our company.

These preferential unsecured debts will rank in priority to all of our other unsecured debts, including payments under the senior subordinated notes. As a result, in the event of our bankruptcy, liquidation or dissolution, our assets will not be available to pay obligations under the senior subordinated notes until we have made all payments on the preferential unsecured debts. We do not know whether sufficient assets will remain after these payments have been made to make any payments on the senior subordinated notes, including payments of principal or interest when due.

The obligations of our subsidiaries under the senior subordinated notes could be deemed a fraudulent conveyance under certain circumstances and a court may subordinate or void them.

Under various fraudulent conveyance or fraudulent transfer laws (including under the laws of the United States), a court could subordinate or void the obligations of our subsidiaries under the senior subordinated notes. Generally, to the extent that a court were to find that at the time one of the subsidiary co-issuers issued the notes or one of our subsidiaries entered into a subsidiary guarantee either:

 

   

the subsidiary co-issuer issued the notes or the subsidiary guarantor incurred the subsidiary guarantee with the intent to hinder, delay or defraud any present or future creditor or contemplated insolvency with a design to favor one or more creditors to the exclusion of others; or

 

   

the subsidiary co-issuer or subsidiary guarantor did not receive fair consideration or reasonably equivalent value for issuing the notes or the subsidiary guarantee and, at the time it issued the notes or the subsidiary guarantee, the subsidiary co-issuer or subsidiary guarantor:

 

   

was insolvent or became insolvent as a result of issuing the notes or the subsidiary guarantee;

 

   

was engaged or about to engage in a business or transaction for which the remaining assets of the subsidiary co-issuer or subsidiary guarantor constituted unreasonably small capital;

 

   

intended to incur, or believed that it would incur, debts beyond its ability to pay those debts as they matured; or

 

   

was a defendant in an action for money damages, or had a judgment for money damages declared against such subsidiary co-issuer or subsidiary guarantor if, after final judgment, the judgment is unsatisfied;

 

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the court could void or subordinate the subsidiary co-issuer’s obligations under the senior subordinated notes or the subsidiary guarantee in favor of the issuer’s or the subsidiary guarantor’s other obligations. In addition, any payment by a subsidiary co-issuer or any subsidiary guarantor could be voided and required to be returned to the subsidiary co-issuer or such subsidiary guarantor, or to a fund for the benefit of its creditors.

Among other things, a legal challenge of a subsidiary co-issuer’s obligations under the senior subordinated notes or a subsidiary guarantee on fraudulent conveyance grounds could focus on the benefits, if any, realized by the subsidiary co-issuers or subsidiary guarantors as a result of the issuance of the senior subordinated notes. To the extent a subsidiary co-issuer’s obligations under the senior subordinated notes or a subsidiary guarantee is voided as a fraudulent conveyance or held unenforceable for any other reason, the holders of the senior subordinated notes would not have any claim against that subsidiary co-issuer or subsidiary guarantor and would be creditors solely of the subsidiary co-issuers and subsidiary guarantors, if any, whose obligations under the senior subordinated notes or subsidiary guarantees were not held unenforceable.

We may not be able to raise the money necessary to finance the change of control offer required by the indenture governing the senior subordinated notes.

Upon the occurrence of certain specific kinds of change of control events, we are required to offer to repurchase all outstanding senior subordinated notes at 101% of the principal amount plus accrued and unpaid interest and additional interest, if any, to the date of repurchase. However, it is possible that we will not have sufficient funds at the time of the change of control to make the required repurchase of senior subordinated notes, or that restrictions under our revolving credit facility or other agreements will not allow such repurchases. If any change of control occurs, we do not know whether we will have sufficient funds to satisfy all of our debt obligations.

The interests of our controlling shareholder may differ from the interests of the holders of the notes.

As of August 27, 2010, our controlling shareholder, Bali Investments S. àr.l., beneficially owned approximately 48% of the outstanding voting shares of Avago Technologies Limited, the ultimate parent company of the obligors under the senior subordinated notes. As a result of this ownership and the terms of a shareholder agreement, this shareholder is currently entitled to elect at least a majority of the directors of Parent, to appoint new management and to approve actions requiring the approval of the holders of its outstanding voting shares as a single class, including adopting most amendments to our articles of association and approving mergers or sales of all or substantially all of our assets. Through their control of Parent, Bali Investments controls us, the subsidiary co-issuers and all of our subsidiary guarantors.

The interests of our controlling shareholder may differ from your interests in material respects. For example, if we encounter financial difficulties or are unable to pay our debts as they mature, the interests of our controlling shareholder and its affiliates, as equity holders, might conflict with your interests as a note holder. Our controlling shareholder and its affiliates may also have an interest in pursuing acquisitions, divestitures, financings or other transactions that, in their judgment, could enhance the value of their equity investments, even though such transactions might involve risks to you as a note holder. Additionally, the indenture governing the senior subordinated notes permits us to pay dividends or make other restricted payments under certain circumstances, and our controlling shareholder and its affiliates may have an interest in our doing so.

Affiliates of our controlling shareholder are in the business of making investments in companies, and may from time to time in the future, acquire interests in businesses that directly or indirectly compete with certain portions of our business or are suppliers or customers of ours. You should consider that the interests of these holders may differ from yours in material respects.

Your ability to transfer the senior subordinated notes may be limited by the absence of an active trading market.

The senior subordinated notes are not listed on any securities exchange or on any automated dealer quotation system in the United States or elsewhere. We cannot assure you as to the liquidity of markets for the senior subordinated notes, your ability to sell the senior subordinated notes or the price at which you would be able to sell the senior subordinated notes. The senior subordinated notes could trade at prices that may be lower than their principal amount or purchase price depending on many factors, including prevailing interest rates, the market for similar notes, our financial and operating performance and other factors. Any market making with respect to the senior subordinated notes may be discontinued at any time without notice. Historically, the market for non-investment grade debt has been subject to disruptions that have caused substantial volatility in the prices of securities similar to the senior subordinated notes. The market for the senior subordinated notes may experience similar disruptions and any such disruptions may adversely affect the prices at which you may sell your senior subordinated notes.

 

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Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd. has no operations of its own and may not have sufficient cash to make payments on the senior subordinated notes.

We have no operations of our own and derive substantially all of our revenue and cash flows from our subsidiaries. Our principal assets are the equity interests we hold in our operating subsidiaries. As a result, we are dependent upon dividends and other payments from our subsidiaries to generate the funds necessary to meet our outstanding debt service and other obligations. Our subsidiaries may not generate sufficient cash from operations to enable us to make principal and interest payments on our indebtedness, including the senior subordinated notes. Payments to us by our subsidiaries will be contingent upon our subsidiaries’ earnings. Our subsidiaries are, or in the future may be, subject to agreements that may restrict payments from the applicable subsidiary to us. While the indenture and our revolving credit facility provide for limitations on these restrictions, we cannot assure you that agreements governing the current and future indebtedness of our subsidiaries will permit the applicable subsidiary to provide us with sufficient cash to fund payments on the senior subordinated notes when due.

 

Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

None.

 

Item 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities

None.

 

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Item 6. Exhibits

 

Exhibit
Number

  

Description

  

Incorporated by Reference Herein

   Filed
Herewith
     

Form

   Filing Date   

  3.1

   Memorandum and Articles of Association    Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd. Registration Statement on Form F-4 (Commission File No. 333-137664).    September 29, 2006   

  4.1

   Second Amended and Restated Shareholder Agreement, dated August 11, 2009, among Avago Technologies Limited, Silver Lake Partners II Cayman, L.P., Silver Lake Technology Investors II Cayman, L.P., Integral Capital Partners VII, L.P., KKR Millennium Fund (Overseas), Limited Partnership, KKR European Fund, Limited Partnership, KKR European Fund II, Limited Partnership, KKR Partners (International), Limited Partnership, Capstone Equity Investors LLC, Avago Investment Partners, Limited Partnership, Bali Investments S.àr.l., Seletar Investments Pte Ltd, Geyser Investment Pte. Ltd. and certain other Persons    Avago Technologies Limited Current Report on Form 8-K (Commission File No. 001-34428).    August 14, 2009   

10.1

   Amendment No. 4, dated as of July 1, 2010, to and under the Credit Agreement, dated, as of December 1, 2005, among Avago Technologies Finance Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avago Technologies Holding Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avago Technologies Limited, Avago Technologies Finance S.à.r.L., Avago Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Avago Technologies Wireless (U.S.A.) Manufacturing Inc., and Avago Technologies U.S. Inc., the Lenders party thereto, Citicorp International Limited (Hong Kong), as Asian Administrative Agent, Citicorp North America, Inc., as Tranche B Term Loan Administrative Agent and as Collateral Agent, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., as Joint Lead Arranger and Joint Lead Bookrunner, Lehman Brothers Inc., as Joint Lead Arranger, Joint Lead Bookrunner and Syndication Agent, Credit Suisse, as Documentation Agent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, as Singaporean Managing Agent, and The Royal Bank Of Scotland, as Senior Managing Agent, as amended.    Avago Technologies Limited Current Report on Form 8-K (Commission File No. 001-34428).    July 2, 2010   

31.1

   Certification of Principal Executive Officer Pursuant to Rule 13a-14 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, As Adopted Pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002          X

 

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Exhibit
Number

  

Description

  

Incorporated by Reference Herein

   Filed
Herewith
     

Form

   Filing Date   

31.2

   Certification of Principal Financial Officer Pursuant to Rule 13a-14 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, As Adopted Pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002          X

32.1

   Certification of Principal Executive Officer Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, As Adopted Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002          X

32.2

   Certification of Principal Financial Officer Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, As Adopted Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002          X

 

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.

 

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES FINANCE PTE. LTD.
By:  

/S/    DOUGLAS R. BETTINGER        

 

Douglas R. Bettinger

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Date: September 2, 2010

 

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