Irvine’s Skyworks Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq: SWKS) has a friend in Jim Cramer, and that friendship is paying off for other local tech firms.
The influential Mad Money host has invited Skyworks CEO Liam Griffin on the CNBC business show (virtually, from Griffin’s home office) a few times over the course of the pandemic.
Cramer also recently had Skyworks alum Donald McClymont on the show, in the run-up to McClymont’s current company, Indie Semiconductor (Nasdaq: INDI), going public this month via a SPAC.
See Kevin Costelloe’s interview with the Indie co-founder and CEO for more on the approximately $1.2B-valued auto tech company’s goals going forward as a public company.
Cramer’s main interest in Indie: the semiconductor and software firm’s board includes David Aldrich, the former chairman and CEO of Skyworks.
“David came on (the show) when Skyworks was at $5. He was our second guest. And he is putting his imprimatur on (Indie),” Cramer told viewers. The show started in 2005.
“That’s funny, because he claimed he was your first guest,” McClymont responded.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals “was the first. He was second,” asserted Cramer. Regardless, “they were both 5 bucks” at the time they were on the show, he said. “They both made viewers a fortune.”
Skyworks stock now tops $170. It’s OC’s third-most valuable public company, with a market cap approaching $30 billion. N.Y.-based biotechnology firm Regeneron (Nasdaq: REGN) is valued at over $55B.
As for Indie’s long-term prospects? Cramer has been a skeptic of some SPACs that have brought private companies to Wall Street, but appears willing to buy into the Indie story, as the electrification of the auto industry continues.
Aldrich is “one of the greatest, (he) created Skyworks (and) made Skyworks Solutions into the company that we know before Liam Griffin came in,” Cramer signed his segment off with.
The fact that he is personally involved with Indie is “a very important seal of approval.”
Another sign of approval for Indie can be seen in its legal department. In April, the company brought on Ellen Bancroft, one of OC’s better-known legal minds, as its general counsel.
Bancroft won a Women in Business Award from the Business Journal in 2012, while serving as the head of Dorsey & Whitney LLP’s California corporate group. The next year she would join Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, and become the managing partner at that firm’s Costa Mesa office.
Bancroft’s expertise is in helping companies go public, making her an apt fit for Indie. She’s been involved in more than 50 IPOs over the years, including some of the most notable public listings in OC’s history, including those for Broadcom, the Ensign Group and Buy.com.
Her advice for other firms looking to go public? Get the company’s financials, corporate governance, and exec team in tip-top shape, so that when the timing is right and “the window opens, you’re ready to go,” she told the Business Journal in 2018.
McClymont said Indie had been considering a traditional IPO in 2022 or 2023, before the SPAC window opened. The only limiting factor to its growth in the past year “has been our balance sheet,” he told Cramer.
