The executives now calling the shots at Jazz Technologies Inc. are set to update investors today on their outlook for the Newport Beach chip plant operator.
It’ll be the company’s first conference call with analysts and investors since indirectly going public in February with an acquisition by Newport Beach’s Acquicor Technology Inc., now known as Jazz Technologies.
One thing that isn’t likely to surprise investors and analysts is who’ll be doing the talking: Gil Amelio.
The former Apple Inc. and National Semiconductor Corp. chief executive took over as Jazz’s top executive two weeks ago.
Former Jazz chief executive Shu Li, who ran the company since its 2002 break from Conexant Systems Inc., abruptly resigned.
“I don’t know how much of that decision was Gil’s and how much was Shu’s,” said Robert Burleson, a senior research analyst with San Francisco-based ThinkEquity Partners LLC. “Obviously these guys want to take full control of the company, strategy, etc. It’s par for the course in this case.”
Amelio knows the business.
Earlier in his career, he ran what became Jazz when it was part of Rockwell International. Rockwell, now Rockwell Automation Inc. in Milwaukee, spun off its chip business as Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems in 1999.
Amelio, who wasn’t available for this story, has his work cut out. Shares of Jazz are down 23% since February, when they stopped trading as Acquicor and started as Jazz.
The company, a contract maker of chips for other companies, counted a market value of about $100 million last week.
Since 2002, Jazz has been private for all but the past few weeks. Little is known about its recent financials.
In 2005, sales de-clined 9% from a year earlier to $199 million. Net losses were $11.5 million, more than double 2004’s net loss of $4.3 million.
The company had 792 workers as of March 1, including 667 in manufacturing, 80 in research and development and 45 in sales, marketing and administrative.
Investors are looking to today’s conference call to shed some light on Jazz’s prospects, according to Burleson.
“The thing that could come out is more perspective on what’s happening in the current environment for semiconductors, which for the companies that were public last year, there was a sort of coming-to-terms with an inventory correction,” he said. “As a newly public company, Jazz hasn’t really had an opportunity to address those concerns.”
A recent filing for Jazz Technologies offered results for what used to be Acquicor and some tidbits on the chip business.
As of 2006, Jazz’s chip plant had a backlog of orders of $56 million, down from $63.6 million a year earlier.
Conexant and Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Massachusetts company formed from Conexant’s former wireless chip business, continue to be Jazz’s biggest customers at 39% of sales last year, though that was down from 60% in 2005.
“We believe our continuous focus on achieving design wins as well as on ramping up production volumes of our current design wins will allow us to continue to diversify and grow our revenue base,” the company said.
Last year, Amelio and former Apple executives Steve Wozniak and Ellen Hancock started Acquicor as a blank check company set up to acquire a technology business.
They raised $173 million in a public offering a year ago and went on to buy Jazz for $260 million, using debt to finance the rest of the deal.
Wozniak is executive vice president and chief technical officer of Jazz Technologies, the holding company for the chip plant. Hancock is president of the holding company. Amelio is chief executive of the holding company and of the chip plant.
