This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, or Form 10-Q, including any information incorporated by reference herein, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, referred to as the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, referred to as the Exchange Act. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “intend,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “continue” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-Q involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and situations that may cause our or our industry’s actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these statements. These factors include those listed below in this Item 1A and those discussed elsewhere in this Form 10-Q. We encourage investors to review these factors carefully. We may from time to time make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in our filings with the SEC. However, we do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of us.
Before you invest in our securities, you should be aware that our business faces numerous financial and market risks, including those described below, as well as general economic and business risks. The following discussion provides information concerning the material risks and uncertainties that we have identified and believe may adversely affect our business, our financial condition and our results of operations. In addition to the other information set forth in this report, you should also consider the risk factors discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, which we filed with the SEC on February 9, 2017, or Annual Report, together with all of the other information included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, the Annual Report, and in our other public filings, which could materially affect our business, financial condition or future results.
For the risks relating to our recent acquisitions, please refer to the section of these risk factors captioned “Risks Relating to Our Recent Acquisitions.”
Risks Relating to the Acquisition of Exar
Our actual financial and operating results could differ materially from any expectations or guidance provided by us concerning future results, including (without limitation) expectations or guidance with respect to the financial impact of any cost savings and other potential synergies.
We currently expect to realize material cost savings and other synergies as a result of our acquisition of Exar, and as a result, we currently believe that the acquisition will be accretive to our free cash-flow and reported non-GAAP earnings per share, excluding upfront non-recurring charges, transaction related expenses, and the amortization of purchased intangible assets. The expectations and guidance we have provided with respect to the potential financial impact of the acquisition are subject to numerous assumptions, however, including assumptions derived from our diligence efforts concerning the status of and prospects for Exar’s business, which we did not control at the time of our diligence, and assumptions relating to the near-term prospects for the semiconductor industry generally and the markets for Exar’s products in particular. In addition, Exar's target markets, customer relationships, and operations generally differ substantially from those of MaxLinear. Accordingly, relative to prior material acquisitions such as our 2015 acquisition of Entropic, we do not expect to be able to realize synergies in the same relative amounts or timeframes. We expect the integration of Exar to present substantial incremental challenges relative to prior acquisitions that could materially and adversely affect our ability to realize the currently anticipated financial, operational, and strategic benefits of the acquisition. Additional assumptions that could affect currently anticipated results relate to numerous matters, including (without limitation) the following:
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projections of Exar’s future revenues, particularly given Exar's historical distributor channel focus and dependency;
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the anticipated financial performance of Exar’s products and products currently in development;
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anticipated cost savings and other synergies associated with the acquisition, including potential revenue synergies;
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our capital structure following the acquisition;
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the amount of goodwill and intangibles that will result from the acquisition;
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certain other purchase accounting adjustments that we have recorded in our financial statements in connection with the acquisition and any subsequent adjustments as we finalize our purchase price allocation;
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acquisition costs, including restructuring charges and transactions costs that we incurred to our financial, legal, and accounting advisors;
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our ability to maintain, develop, and deepen relationships with customers of Exar; and
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other financial and strategic risks of the Exar acquisition, including the possible impact of reduced liquidity of MaxLinear resulting from deal-related cash outlays and the credit risk associated from the potential debt facility described below.
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We cannot provide any assurances with respect to the accuracy of our assumptions, including our assumptions with respect to future revenues or revenue growth rates, if any, of Exar, and we cannot provide assurances with respect to our ability to realize the cost savings that we currently anticipate. Risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from currently anticipated results include, but are not limited to, risks relating to our ability to integrate Exar successfully; currently unanticipated incremental costs that we may incur in connection with integrating the two companies; risks relating to our ability to realize incremental revenues from the acquisition in the amounts that we currently anticipate; risks relating to the willingness of Exar’s customers and other partners to continue to conduct business with MaxLinear; and numerous risks and uncertainties that affect the semiconductor industry generally and the markets for our products and those of Exar specifically. Any failure to integrate Exar successfully and to realize the financial benefits we currently anticipate from the acquisition would have a material adverse impact on our future operating results and financial condition and could materially and adversely affect the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
Failure to integrate our business and operations successfully with those of Exar in the expected time-frame or otherwise may adversely affect MaxLinear’s operating results and financial condition if the acquisition is completed.
We do not have a substantial history of acquiring other companies and have never pursued an acquisition of the size and complexity of Exar. The success of the acquisition of Exar will depend, in substantial part, on our ability to integrate Exar’s business and operations successfully with those of MaxLinear and to realize fully the anticipated benefits and potential synergies from combining our companies, including, among others, currently expected cost savings from duplicative functions; potential operational efficiencies in our respective supply chains and in research and development investments; and potential revenue growth resulting from the addition of Exar’s product portfolio. We expect that the integration will be complex and time consuming and will require substantial management time and attention, which may divert attention and resources from other important areas, including our existing businesses. We may face significant challenges in consolidating our operations with Exar, integrating the two companies’ technologies, and addressing the different corporate cultures of the two companies. Additional unanticipated costs may be incurred in the course of integrating our respective businesses. If the companies are not successfully integrated, the anticipated benefits of the acquisition may not be realized fully or at all or may take longer to realize than expected. In such a case, we would expect our operating results and financial condition to be materially and adversely affected, which could also have a material and adverse effect on the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
Our business relationships, including customer relationships, and those of Exar may be subject to disruption due to uncertainty associated with the acquisition.
In response to the announcement and closing of the acquisition, customers, vendors, licensors, and other third parties with whom we or Exar do business or otherwise have relationships may experience uncertainty associated with the acquisition, and this uncertainty could materially affect their decisions with respect to existing or future business relationships with MaxLinear. As a result, we are in many instances unable to evaluate the impact of the acquisition on certain assumed contract rights and obligations, including intellectual property rights.
These business relationships may be subject to disruption as customers and others may elect to delay or defer purchase or design-win decisions or switch to other suppliers due to the uncertainty about the direction of our offerings, any perceived unwillingness on our part to support existing Exar products after the acquisition is completed, or any general perceptions by customers or other third parties that impute operational or business challenges to us arising from the acquisition. In addition, customers or other third parties may attempt to negotiate changes in existing business relationships, which may result in additional obligations imposed on us. These disruptions could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. Any loss of customers, customer products, design win opportunities, or other important strategic relationships could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition and could have a material and adverse effect on the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
In connection with the acquisition of Exar, we incurred $425.0 million of secured term loan indebtedness. We have not previously carried long-term indebtedness, which will adversely affect our operating results and cash-flows as we satisfy our underlying interest and principal payment obligations.
MaxLinear financed the acquisition of Exar in part with a secured term loan facility in an aggregate principal amount of approximately $425.0 million. As of June 30, 2017, we had approximately $425.0 million of outstanding principal under long-
term indebtedness, of which approximately $3.2 million was current. The term loan facility is secured by a first priority security interest in MaxLinear’s assets, subject to certain customary exceptions, as well as pledges of our equity interests in certain subsidiaries. We have not previously carried long term debt on our balance sheet and have financed our operations principally through working capital generated from operations as well as sales and issuances of our equity securities. Incurring material indebtedness will adversely affect our operating expenses through interest payment obligations and will adversely affect our ability to use cash generated from operations as we repay interest and principal under the term loans. In addition, although the term loan provisions do not include financial covenants, they do include operational covenants that may adversely affect our ability to engage in certain activities, including certain financing and acquisition transactions, stock repurchases, guarantees, and similar transactions, without obtaining the consent of the lenders, which may or may not be forthcoming. Accordingly, outstanding indebtedness could adversely affect our operational freedom or ability to pursue strategic transactions that we would otherwise consider to be in the best interests of stockholders.
Specifically, our new indebtedness could have important consequences to investors in our common stock, including the following:
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we will be subject to substantial variable interest rate risk because our interest rate under the term loan will vary based on a fixed margin over either an adjusted LIBOR or an adjusted base rate. Interest rates, including LIBOR, have recently increased and are expected to continue to increase in future quarters as the Federal Reserve Board seeks to normalize interest rates. If interest rates were to increase substantially, it would adversely affect our operating results and could affect our ability to service the term loan indebtedness;
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our ability to obtain any necessary financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, debt service requirements, or other purposes may be limited or financing may be unavailable;
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a substantial portion of our cash flows must be dedicated to the payment of principal and interest on our indebtedness and other obligations and will not be available for use in our business;
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our level of indebtedness could limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the markets in which we operate; and
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our high degree of indebtedness will make us more vulnerable to changes in general economic conditions and/or a downturn in our business, thereby making it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations.
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If we fail to make required debt payments, or if we fail to comply with other covenants in our debt service agreements, we would be in default under the terms of these agreements. Subject to customary cure rights, any default would permit the holders of the indebtedness to accelerate repayment of this debt and could cause defaults under other indebtedness that we have, any of which could have a material adverse effect on the trading price of our common stock.
We used substantially all of Exar’s available cash resources, proceeds from our term loan facility, and a sizeable portion of our cash resources to complete the acquisition and distribute the cash consideration payable to Exar stockholders. As a result, our available liquidity after the acquisition was reduced at the same time that the scope of our operations and cash requirements have increased, and we may be required to seek additional financing.
Under the terms of the merger agreement and in order to implement the distribution of the cash merger consideration to Exar’s stockholders, we were required to fund the balance of the cash merger consideration from our own cash and cash equivalents, cash and equivalents currently held by Exar, and the proceeds from the term loan facility. Consequently, substantially all of Exar’s available cash was used in connection with the acquisition, and our overall liquidity after completion of the acquisition was materially reduced relative to our prior liquidity even though we incurred substantial expenses and expect to incur additional restructuring costs as we integrate Exar’s business and operations. To the extent our cash needs are more than we currently anticipate, our board of directors and management may determine to seek financing to enhance our liquidity, which could involve the issuance of additional debt or equity securities. We cannot provide any assurances that additional financing will be available to us when and as needed or on terms that we believe to be commercially reasonable. To the extent we issue debt securities, such indebtedness would have rights that are senior to holders of equity securities and could contain covenants that restrict our operations. Any equity financing would be dilutive to our current stockholders. If we determine that we require funding as a result of the acquisition but cannot obtain such funding on terms we consider to be reasonable, we may seek other methods to reduce our use of cash, including reductions in our research and development spending, which would be expected to have an adverse long-term effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Servicing our indebtedness will require a significant amount of cash, and we may not have sufficient cash flow from our business to pay our substantial indebtedness.
In connection with the term loan facility, we incurred $425.0 million in aggregate principal amount of senior indebtedness, of which approximately $425.0 million remained outstanding at June 30, 2017 and of which approximately $3.2 million was current at June 30, 2017. Our substantial indebtedness may increase our vulnerability to any generally adverse economic and industry conditions.
Our ability to make scheduled payments of the principal and interest when due, or to refinance our borrowings under the Loan Facility, will depend on our future performance, which is subject to economic, financial, competitive and other factors beyond our control. Our business may not continue to generate cash flow from operations in the future sufficient to satisfy our obligations under our indebtedness, and any future indebtedness we may incur and to make necessary capital expenditures. If we are unable to generate such cash flow, we may be required to adopt one or more alternatives, such as reducing or delaying investments or capital expenditures, selling assets, refinancing or obtaining additional equity capital on terms that may be onerous or highly dilutive. Our ability to refinance the term loans or existing or future indebtedness will depend on the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. We may not be able to engage in any of these activities or engage in these activities on desirable terms, which could result in a default on the Loan Facility or future indebtedness.
We may still incur substantially more debt or take other actions, which would intensify the risks discussed immediately above.
We and our subsidiaries may, subject to any limitations in the terms of the term loan facility, incur additional debt, secure existing or future debt, recapitalize our debt or take a number of other actions that are not limited by the terms of our term loans that could have the effect of diminishing our ability to make payments under the indebtedness when due. If we incur any additional debt, the related risks that we and our subsidiaries face could intensify.
We expect to incur substantial expenses related to the integration of MaxLinear and Exar.
We expect to incur substantial expenses in connection with integrating the operations, technologies, and business systems of MaxLinear and Exar. We expect business systems integration between the two companies to require substantial management attention, including integration of information management, purchasing, accounting and finance, sales, payroll and benefits systems and regulatory compliance functions. Numerous factors beyond our control could affect the total cost or the timing of expected integration expenses. Moreover, many of the expenses that will be incurred are by their nature difficult to estimate accurately at the present time. These expenses could, particularly in the near term, reduce the savings that we expect to achieve from the elimination of duplicative expenses and the realization of economies of scale and cost savings related to the integration of the businesses. These integration expenses may result in MaxLinear’s taking significant charges against earnings.
We recorded goodwill that could become impaired and adversely affect our future operating results.
The Exar acquisition is accounted for as an acquisition by MaxLinear in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Under the acquisition method of accounting, the assets and liabilities of Exar were recorded, as of completion, at their respective fair values and added to our assets and liabilities. Our reported financial condition and results of operations after the acquisition date reflect Exar’s balances and results but will not be restated retroactively to reflect the historical financial position or results of operations of Exar for periods prior to the acquisition. As a result, comparisons of future results against prior period results will be more difficult for investors.
Under the acquisition method of accounting, the total purchase price was allocated to Exar’s tangible assets and liabilities and identifiable intangible assets based on their fair values as of the date of completion of the acquisition. The excess of the purchase price over those fair values of
$160.7 million
was recorded as goodwill. As of
June 30, 2017
our total goodwill was
$238.8 million
. To the extent the value of goodwill or intangibles becomes impaired, we may be required to incur material charges relating to such impairment. Any such impairment charge could have a material impact on our operating results in future periods, and the announcement of a material impairment could have an adverse effect on the trading price and trading volume of our common stock.
As part of a business unit divestiture, Exar agreed to indemnify the buyer of the business unit for an amount that could be up to the full purchase price received for breaches of representations and warranties, covenants and other matters under the applicable purchase agreement. If, following the completion of the acquisition, Exar were required to make payments in satisfaction of these indemnification obligations, it could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.
Under the terms of the purchase agreement relating to the divested business unit, Exar agreed to indemnify the purchaser of the business unit for breaches of representations and warranties and covenants and for certain other matters. Exar also agreed to place $5.0 million of the total purchase price into an escrow account for a period of 18 months to partially secure its indemnification obligations under the purchase agreement. In addition, Exar’s indemnification obligations for breaches of representations and warranties survive for 12 months from the closing of the sale transaction, except for breaches of representations and warranties covering intellectual property, which survive for 18 months, and breaches of representations and warranties of certain fundamental representations, which survive until the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations. Exar’s maximum indemnification obligation for breaches of representations and warranties, other than intellectual property and fundamental representations, is $13.6 million, its maximum indemnification obligation for breaches of intellectual property representations is $34.0 million, and is maximum indemnity obligation for breaches of fundamental representations is the full purchase price amount (approximately $136.0 million). The aggregate amount recovered by the purchaser in accordance with the indemnification provisions with respect to matters that are subject to the intellectual property representations, together with the aggregate amount recovered by the Buyer in accordance with the indemnification provisions with respect to matters that are subject to the general representations and warranties (other than fundamental representations), will in no event exceed $34.0 million.
We and Exar may have difficulty motivating and retaining key Exar personnel in light of the acquisition.
Uncertainty about the effect of the acquisition on our employees and those of Exar may have an adverse effect on MaxLinear. This uncertainty may impair our ability to retain and motivate them. Employee retention may be particularly challenging as our employees may experience frustrations during the integration process and uncertainty about their future roles with us following completion of the acquisition. MaxLinear must be successful at retaining and motivating key employees in order for the benefits of the transaction to be fully realized. If key employees depart because of issues relating to the uncertainty and difficulty of integration, we may incur significant costs in identifying, hiring, and retaining replacements for departing employees, which could substantially reduce or delay our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
A stockholder class action lawsuit has been filed against us, Exar, Exar’s board of directors, and our merger subsidiary, Eagle Acquisition Corporation, challenging the acquisition, and an unfavorable judgment or ruling could result in substantial costs, or have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.
On April 18, 2017, The Vladimir Gusinsky Revocable Trust, a purported stockholder of Exar Corporation, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Exar, its board of directors, MaxLinear, and Eagle Acquisition Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of MaxLinear). The complaint alleges that the merger with Exar offers inadequate consideration to Exar’s shareholders and that the Schedule 14D-9 filed by Exar in connection with the merger omits material information. The complaint purports to bring class claims for violation of sections 14(e), 14(d), and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 14d-9. The complaint seeks certification of a class; an injunction barring the merger or, if defendants enter into the merger, an order rescinding it or awarding rescissory damages; declaratory relief; and plaintiff’s costs, including attorneys’ fees and experts’ fees. Additional similar lawsuits may be filed in the future.
On or about May 3, 2017, the parties to the above-referenced lawsuits reached an agreement in principle whereby plaintiffs will voluntarily dismiss the claims brought by Mr. Marshall and The Vladimir Gusinsky Revocable Trust with prejudice (but without prejudice as to other members of the putative class), defendants will make certain supplemental disclosures, and the plaintiffs will seek a mootness fee. On May 3, 2017, Exar made the supplemental disclosures contemplated by this agreement in principle. The parties are in discussions concerning plaintiffs’ claim for a mootness fee. Should the parties be unable to reach agreement on the amount, plaintiffs intend to file a fee application with the court.
Should the contemplated resolution of these lawsuits not become final, we intend to vigorously defend against this and any subsequently filed similar actions. Litigation is inherently uncertain, however, and there can be no assurances that the defense of this lawsuit and any potential shareholder lawsuits will be successful. In addition, we and Exar have obligations, under certain circumstances, to hold harmless and indemnify each of the defendant directors against judgments, fines, settlements and expenses related to claims against such directors and otherwise to the fullest extent permitted under Delaware law and our and Exar’s respective bylaws and certificate of incorporation. Such obligations may apply to this and other
potential lawsuits. An unfavorable outcome in this or any potential lawsuit could prevent or delay the consummation of the merger, result in substantial costs to us and Exar, or have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.
Risks Related to Our Business
We face intense competition and expect competition to increase in the future, which could have an adverse effect on our revenue, revenue growth rate, if any, and market share.
The global semiconductor market in general, and the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and broader industrial and communications analog and mixed-signal markets in particular, are highly competitive. We compete in different target markets to various degrees on the basis of a number of principal competitive factors, including our products’ performance, features and functionality, energy efficiency, size, ease of system design, customer support, product roadmap, reputation, reliability and price. We expect competition to increase and intensify as a result of industry consolidation and the resulting creation of larger semiconductor companies. Large semiconductor companies resulting from industry consolidation could enjoy substantial market power, which they could exert through, among other things, aggressive pricing that could adversely affect our customer relationships and revenues. In addition, we expect the internal resources of large, integrated original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, may continue to enter our markets. Increased competition could result in price pressure, reduced profitability and loss of market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenue, revenue growth rates and operating results.
As our products are integrated into a variety of communications and industrial platforms, our competitors range from large, international merchant semiconductor companies offering a wide range of semiconductor products to smaller companies specializing in narrow markets, to internal or vertically integrated engineering groups within certain of our customers. Our primary merchant semiconductor competitors include Silicon Labs, NXP B.V., RDA Microelectronics, Inc., Broadcom Ltd, Rafael Microelectronics, Inc., Inphi Corporation, M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc., Semtech Corporation, Qorvo Inc., Microsemi Corporation, Texas Instruments, Sigma Designs, Inc. and Analog Devices. In connection with the Exar acquisition, we substantially expanded our target markets and the scope of our competition. Additional competitors of Exar include Integrated Device Technology, Inc. Renesas Electronics Corporation, Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., Monolithic Power Systems, NXP Semiconductors N.V. (which is currently subject to a potential acquisition by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.), Microchip Technology, Inc., Ambarella, Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, and HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd.. It is quite likely that competition in the markets in which we participate will increase in the future as existing competitors improve or expand their product offerings. In addition, it is quite likely that a number of other public and private companies are in the process of developing competing products for our current and target markets. Because our products often are building block semiconductors which provide functions that in some cases can be integrated into more complex integrated circuits, we also face competition from manufacturers of integrated circuits, some of which may be existing customers or platform partners that develop their own integrated circuit products. If we cannot offer an attractive solution for applications where our competitors offer more fully integrated products, we may lose significant market share to our competitors. Certain of our competitors have fully-integrated tuner/demodulator/video processing solutions targeting high-performance cable, satellite, or DTV applications, and thereby potentially provide customers with smaller and cheaper solutions. Some of our targeted customers for our optical interconnect solutions are module makers who are vertically integrated, where we compete with internally supplied components, and we compete with much larger analog and mixed-signal catalog competitors in the multi-market high-performance analog markets.
Our ability to compete successfully depends on factors 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. Moreover, the competitive landscape is changing as a result of consolidation within our industry as some of our competitors have merged with or been acquired by other competitors, and other competitors have begun to collaborate with each other. These developments may materially and adversely affect our current and future target markets and our ability to compete successfully in those markets.
We depend on a limited number of customers, that have undergone or are undergoing consolidation and who themselves are dependent on a consolidating set of service provider customers, for a substantial portion of our revenue, and the loss of, or a significant reduction in orders from one or more of our major customers could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and operating results. In addition, Exar's business is substantially dependent on distributor agreements.
For the
six months ended
June 30, 2017
, one customer accounted for
29%
of our net revenue, and our ten largest customers accounted for
64%
of our net revenue. We expect that our operating results for the foreseeable future will continue
to show a substantial but declining percentage of sales dependent on a relatively small number of customers and on the ability of these customers to sell products that incorporate our RF receivers or RF receiver SoCs, digital STB video SoCs, DBS ODU, MoCA®, G.hn connectivity solutions and high-performance analog solutions. In the future, these customers may decide not to purchase our products at all, may purchase fewer products than they did in the past, or may defer or cancel purchases or otherwise alter their purchasing patterns. Factors that could affect our revenue from these large customers include the following:
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substantially all of our sales to date have been made on a purchase order basis, which permits our customers to cancel, change or delay product purchase commitments with little or no notice to us and without penalty;
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some of our customers have sought or are seeking relationships with current or potential competitors which may affect their purchasing decisions; and
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service provider and OEM consolidation across cable, satellite, and fiber markets could result in significant changes to our customers’ technology development and deployment priorities and roadmaps, which could affect our ability to forecast demand accurately and could lead to increased volatility in our business.
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In addition, delays in development could impair our relationships with our strategic customers and negatively impact sales of the products under development. Moreover, it is possible that our customers may develop their own product or adopt a competitor’s solution for products that they currently buy from us. If that happens, our sales would decline and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.
Our relationships with some customers may deter other potential customers who compete with these customers from buying our products. To attract new customers or retain existing customers, we may offer these customers favorable prices on our products. In that event, our average selling prices and gross margins would decline. The loss of a key customer, a reduction in sales to any key customer or our inability to attract new significant customers could seriously impact our revenue and materially and adversely affect our results of operations.
Exar derived a substantial portion of its business from two distributors, and we anticipate that sales of our products through these distributors will continue to account for a significant portion of our revenues from sales of Exar's integrated circuit products. In addition, Exar's agreements with these distributors provide protection against price reduction on their inventories of our products. The loss of either or both of these distributors could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations, and price reductions associated with their inventories of our products could have a substantial adverse effect on our operating results in the event of a dramatic decline in selling prices for these products.
A significant portion of our revenue is attributable to demand for our products in markets for connected home solutions, and development delays and consolidation trends among cable and satellite television operators could adversely affect our future revenues and operating results.
In the
six months ended
June 30, 2017
, revenue directly attributable to connected home applications accounted for approximately
81%
of our net revenue. Delays in the development of, or unexpected developments in the connected home markets could have an adverse effect on order activity by original equipment manufacturers in these markets and, as a result, on our business, revenue, operating results and financial condition. In addition, consolidation trends among pay-TV and broadband operators may continue, which could have a material adverse effect on our future operating results and financial condition. Most recently, we experienced sharper than previously anticipated declines in our legacy video SoC revenues as a result of the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications.
If we fail to penetrate new applications and markets, our revenue, revenue growth rate, if any, and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
Currently, we sell most of our products to manufacturers of televisions, terrestrial set-top boxes for sale in various markets worldwide including, but not limited to, cable broadband voice and data modems and gateways, pay-TV set-top boxes and gateways into cable and satellite operator markets, satellite outdoor units or LNB’s, optical modules for long-haul and metro telecommunications markets, and RF transceivers and modem solutions for wireless infrastructure markets. Our future revenue growth, if any, will depend in part on our ability to further penetrate into, and expand beyond, these markets with analog and mixed-signal solutions targeting the markets for high-speed optical interconnects for datacenter, metro, and long-haul optical modules, telecommunications wireless infrastructure, and cable DOCSIS 3.1 network infrastructure products. Each of these markets presents distinct and substantial risks. If any of these markets do not develop as we currently anticipate, or if we are unable to penetrate them successfully, it could materially and adversely affect our revenue and revenue growth rate, if any.
Broadband data modems and gateways and pay-TV and satellite set-top boxes and video gateways continue to represent our largest North American and European revenue generator. The North American and European pay-TV market is dominated by only a few OEMs, including Technicolor, Arris Group, Inc., Humax Co., Ltd., and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. These OEMs are large multinational corporations with substantial negotiating power relative to us and are undergoing significant consolidation. Securing design wins with any of these companies requires a substantial investment of our time and resources. Even if we succeed, additional testing and operational certifications will be required by the OEMs’ customers, which include large pay-TV television companies such as Comcast Corporation, Liberty Global plc, Charter Communications, AT&T and EchoStar Corporation. In addition, our products will need to be compatible with other components in our customers’ designs, including components produced by our competitors or potential competitors. There can be no assurance that these other companies will support or continue to support our products.
If we fail to penetrate these or other new markets upon which we target our resources, our revenue and revenue growth rate, if any, likely will decrease over time and our financial condition could suffer.
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. Many of our products originated with our research and development efforts and we believe have provided us with a significant competitive advantage. In the
six months ended
June 30, 2017
, our research and development expense was
$52.9 million
. We continue to maintain or increase our research and development expenditures as part of our strategy of devoting focused research and development efforts on the development of innovative and sustainable product platforms. We are committed to investing in new product development internally in order to stay competitive in our markets and plan to maintain research and development and design capabilities for new solutions in advanced semiconductor process nodes such as 28nm and 16nm and beyond. We do not know whether we will have sufficient resources to maintain the level of investment in research and development required to remain competitive as semiconductor process nodes continue to shrink and become increasingly complex. In addition, we cannot assure you that the technologies which are the focus of our research and development expenditures will become commercially successful.
We may not sustain our growth rate, and we may not be able to manage future growth effectively.
We have been experiencing significant growth in a short period of time. Our net revenue increased from approximately $133.1 million in 2014, to $300.4 million in 2015 and $387.8 million in 2016, in part due to acquisitions. We may not achieve similar growth rates in future periods. You should not rely on our operating results for any prior quarterly or annual periods as an indication of our future operating performance. If we are unable to maintain adequate revenue growth, our financial results could suffer and our stock price could decline.
To manage our growth successfully and handle the responsibilities of being a public company, we believe we must effectively, among other things:
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recruit, hire, train and manage additional qualified engineers for our research and development activities, especially in the positions of design engineering, product and test engineering and applications engineering;
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add sales personnel and expand customer engineering support offices;
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implement and improve our administrative, financial and operational systems, procedures and controls; and
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enhance our information technology support for enterprise resource planning and design engineering by adapting and expanding our systems and tool capabilities, and properly training new hires as to their use.
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If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, we may not be able to take advantage of market opportunities or develop new products and we may fail to satisfy customer requirements, maintain product quality, execute our business plan or respond to competitive pressures.
The complexity of our products could result in unforeseen delays or expenses caused by undetected defects or bugs, which could reduce the market acceptance of our new products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers and adversely affect our operating costs.
Highly complex products like our broadband RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs, physical medium devices for optical modules, RF transceiver and modem solutions for wireless infrastructure markets, and high-performance analog solutions may contain defects and bugs when they are first introduced or as new versions are released. Where any of our products, including legacy acquired products, contain defects or bugs, or have reliability, quality or compatibility problems, we may not be able to
successfully correct these problems. 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 and attract new customers, and our financial results. In addition, these defects or bugs could interrupt or delay sales to our customers. If any of these problems are not found until after we have commenced commercial production of a new product (as in the case of the legacy Entropic products experiencing warranty claims), we may be required to incur additional development costs and product recall, repair or replacement costs, and our operating costs could be adversely affected. These problems may also result in warranty or product liability claims against us by our customers or others that may require us to make significant expenditures to defend these claims or pay damage awards. In the event of a warranty claim, we may also incur costs if we compensate the affected customer. We maintain product liability insurance, but this insurance is limited in amount and subject to significant deductibles. There is no guarantee that our insurance will be available or adequate to protect against all claims. We also may incur costs and expenses relating to a recall of one of our customers’ products 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.
Average selling prices of our products could decrease rapidly, which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and gross margins.
We may experience substantial period-to-period fluctuations in future operating results due to the erosion of our average selling prices. From time to time, we have reduced the average unit price of our products due to competitive pricing pressures, new product introductions by us or our competitors, and for other reasons, and we expect that we will have to do so again in the future. In particular, we believe that industry consolidation has provided a number of larger semiconductor companies with substantial market power, which has had an adverse impact on selling prices in some of our markets. If we are unable to offset any reductions in our average selling prices by increasing our sales volumes or introducing new products with higher margins, our revenue and gross margins will suffer. To support our gross margins, we must develop and introduce new products and product enhancements on a timely basis and continually reduce our and our customers’ costs. Our inability to do so would cause our revenue and gross margins to decline. In addition, under Exar's agreements with key distributors, we provide protection for reductions in selling prices of the distributors' inventory, which could have a significant adverse effect on our operating results if the selling prices for those products fell dramatically.
If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced products on a timely basis, our ability to attract and retain customers could be impaired and our competitive position could be harmed.
We operate in a dynamic environment characterized by rapidly changing technologies and industry standards and technological obsolescence. To compete successfully, we must design, develop, market and sell new or enhanced products that provide increasingly higher levels of performance and reliability and meet the cost expectations of our customers. The introduction of new products by our competitors, the market acceptance of products based on new or alternative technologies, or the emergence of new industry standards could render our existing or future products obsolete. Our failure to anticipate or timely develop new or enhanced products or technologies in response to technological shifts could result in decreased revenue and our competitors winning more competitive bid processes, known as “design wins.” In particular, we may experience difficulties with product design, manufacturing, marketing or certification that could delay or prevent our development, introduction or marketing of new or enhanced products. If we fail to introduce new or enhanced products that meet the needs of our customers or penetrate new markets in a timely fashion, we will lose market share and our operating results will be adversely affected.
In particular, we believe that we will need to develop new products in part to respond to changing dynamics and trends in our end user markets, including (among other trends) consolidation among cable and satellite operators, potential industry shifts away from the hardware devices and other technologies that incorporate our products, and changes in consumer television viewing habits and how consumers access and receive broadcast content and digital broadband services. We cannot predict how these trends will continue to develop or how or to what extent they may affect our future revenues and operating results. We believe that we will need to continue to make substantial investments in research and development in an attempt to ensure a product roadmap that anticipates these types of changes; however, we cannot provide any assurances that we will accurately predict the direction in which our markets will evolve or that we will be able to develop, market, or sell new products that respond to such changes successfully or in a timely manner, if at all.
We have settled in the past and are currently a party to intellectual property litigation and may face additional claims of intellectual property infringement. Current litigation and any future litigation could be time-consuming, costly to defend or settle and result in the loss of significant rights.
The semiconductor industry is characterized by companies that hold large numbers of patents and other intellectual property rights and that vigorously pursue, protect and enforce intellectual property rights. Third parties have in the past and may in the future assert against us and our customers and distributors their patent and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to our business. In particular, from time to time, we receive correspondence from competitors seeking to engage us in discussions concerning potential claims against us, and we receive correspondence from customers seeking indemnification for potential claims related to infringement claims asserted against down-stream users of our products. We investigate these requests as received and could be required to enter license agreements with respect to third party intellectual property rights or indemnify third parties, either of which could have an adverse effect on our future operating results.
On January 21, 2014, CrestaTech Technology Corporation, or CrestaTech, filed a complaint for patent infringement against us in the United States District Court of Delaware, or the District Court Litigation. In its complaint, CrestaTech alleges that we infringe U.S. Patent Nos. 7,075,585, or the ‘585 Patent, and 7,265,792, or the ‘792 Patent. In addition to asking for compensatory damages, CrestaTech alleges willful infringement and seeks a permanent injunction. CrestaTech also names Sharp Corporation, Sharp Electronics Corp. and VIZIO, Inc. as defendants based upon their alleged use of our television tuners.
On January 28, 2014, CrestaTech filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, or ITC, again naming, among others, us, Sharp, Sharp Electronics, and VIZIO, or the ITC Investigation. On May 16, 2014, the ITC granted CrestaTech’s motion to file an amended complaint adding six OEM Respondents, namely, SIO International, Inc., Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., Wistron Corp., Wistron Infocomm Technology (America) Corp., Top Victory Investments Ltd. and TPV International (USA), Inc. which are collectively referred to with us, Sharp and VIZIO as the Company Respondents. CrestaTech’s ITC complaint alleged a violation of 19 U.S.C. § 1337 through the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, or the sale within the United States after importation of Maxlinear’s accused products that CrestaTech alleged infringe the same two patents asserted in the Delaware action. Through its ITC complaint, CrestaTech sought an exclusion order preventing entry into the United States of certain of our television tuners and televisions containing such tuners from Sharp, Sharp Electronics, and VIZIO. CrestaTech also sought a cease and desist order prohibiting the Company Respondents from engaging in the importation into, sale for importation into, the sale after importation of, or otherwise transferring within the United States certain of our television tuners or televisions containing such tuners.
On March 10, 2014, the court stayed the District Court Litigation pending resolution of the ITC Investigation.
On December 15, 2014, the ITC held a trial in the ITC Investigation. On February 27, 2015, the Administrative Law Judge, or the ALJ, issued a written Initial Determination, or ID, ruling that MaxLinear, Sharp, Sharp Electronics, and VIZIO did not violate 19 U.S.C § 1337 in connection with CrestaTech’s asserted patents because CrestaTech failed to satisfy the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement pursuant to Section 1337(a)(2). In addition, the ID stated that certain of our television tuners and televisions incorporating those tuners manufactured and sold by certain customers infringe three claims of the ‘585 Patent, and these three claims were not determined to be invalid. On April 30, 2015, the ITC issued a notice indicating that it intended to review portions of the ID finding no violation of Section 1337, including the ID’s findings of infringement with respect to, and validity of, the ‘585 Patent, and the ID’s finding that CrestaTech failed to establish the existence of a domestic industry within the meaning of Section 1337.
The ITC subsequently issued its opinion, which terminated its investigation. The opinion affirmed the findings of the ALJ that no violation of Section 1337 had occurred because CrestaTech had failed to establish the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement. The ITC also affirmed the ALJ's finding of infringement with respect to the three claims of the '585 Patent that were not held to be invalid.
On November 30, 2015, CrestaTech filed an appeal of the ITC decision with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or the Federal Circuit. On March 7, 2016, CrestaTech voluntarily dismissed its appeal, resulting in a final determination of the ITC Investigation in our favor.
In addition, we have filed four petitions for inter partes review, or IPR, by the US Patent Office, two for each of the CrestaTech patents asserted against us. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or the PTAB, did not institute two of these IPRs as being redundant to IPRs filed by another party that were already underway for the same CrestaTech patent. The remaining two petitions were instituted or instituted-in-part and, together with the IPRs filed by third parties, there are currently six pending IPR proceedings involving the two CrestaTech patents asserted against us.
In October 2015, the PTAB issued final decisions in two of the six pending IPR proceedings (one for each of the two asserted patents), holding that all of the reviewed claims are unpatentable. Included in these decisions was one of the three claims of the ‘585 Patent mentioned above in connection with the ITC’s final decision. CrestaTech appealed the PTAB’s decisions at the Federal Circuit. On November 8, 2016, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion affirming the PTAB’s finding of unpatentability.
In August 2016, the PTAB issued final written decisions in the remaining four pending IPR proceedings (two for each of the asserted patents), holding that many of the reviewed claims - including the two remaining claims of the ‘585 Patent which the ITC held were infringed - are unpatentable. As a result of these IPR decisions, all 13 claims that CrestaTech asserted against us in the ITC Investigation have been found to be unpatentable by the PTAB. The parties have appealed the two decisions related to the ‘585 Patent; however, no appeals were filed as to the PTAB’s rulings for the ‘792 Patent. Briefing is completed in the two '585 appeals, and oral argument will likely be scheduled for Fall 2017.
On March 18, 2016, CrestaTech filed a petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the Northern District of California. As a result of this proceeding, all rights in the CrestaTech asserted patents, including the right to control the pending litigation, were assigned to CF Crespe LLC, or CF Crespe. CF Crespe is now the named party in the pending IPRs, the Federal Circuit appeal and District Court Litigation.
Per the Court’s request, on April 19, 2017, the parties submitted a status report in the District Court Litigation. In their report, the parties suggested that the District Court Litigation remain stayed pending the Federal Circuit’s decision in the appeal of the ‘585 IPRs, and any subsequent appeal thereof.
We cannot predict the outcome of any appeal by CF Crespe or CrestaTech, the District Court Litigation, or the IPRs. Any adverse determination in the District Court Litigation could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.
Claims that our products, processes or technology infringe third-party intellectual property rights, regardless of their merit or resolution and including the CrestaTech claims, are costly to defend or settle and could divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel. In addition, many of our customer and distributor agreements require us to indemnify and defend our customers or distributors from third-party infringement claims and pay damages in the case of adverse rulings. Claims of this sort also could harm our relationships with our customers or distributors and might deter future customers from doing business with us. In order to maintain our relationships with existing customers and secure business from new customers, we have been required from time to time to provide additional assurances beyond our standard terms. If any future proceedings result in an adverse outcome, we could be required to:
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cease the manufacture, use or sale of the infringing products, processes or technology;
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pay substantial damages for infringement;
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expend significant resources to develop non-infringing products, processes or technology;
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license technology from the third-party claiming infringement, which license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all;
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cross-license our technology to a competitor to resolve an infringement claim, which could weaken our ability to compete with that competitor; or
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pay substantial damages to our customers or end users to discontinue their use of or to replace infringing technology sold to them with non-infringing technology.
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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 and trade secrets in the United States and in selected foreign countries where we believe filing for such protection is appropriate. Effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may be unavailable, limited or not applied for in some countries. Some of our products and technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application. We cannot guarantee that:
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any of our present or future patents or patent claims will not lapse or be invalidated, circumvented, challenged or abandoned;
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our intellectual property rights will provide competitive advantages to us;
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our ability to assert our intellectual property rights against potential competitors or to settle current or future disputes will not be limited by our agreements with third parties;
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any of our pending or future patent applications will be issued or have the coverage originally sought;
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our intellectual property rights will be enforced in jurisdictions where competition may be intense or where legal protection may be weak;
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any of the trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or other intellectual property rights that we presently employ in our business will not lapse or be invalidated, circumvented, challenged or abandoned; or
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we will not lose the ability to assert our intellectual property rights against or to license our technology to others and collect royalties or other payments.
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In addition, our competitors or others may design around our protected patents or technologies. Effective intellectual property 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. If we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property rights, an adverse decision in any of these legal actions could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property rights, limit the value of our technology or otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Unauthorized use of our intellectual property may have occurred or may occur in the future. Although we have taken steps to minimize the risk of this occurring, any such failure to identify unauthorized use and otherwise adequately protect our intellectual property would adversely affect our business. Moreover, if we are required to commence litigation, whether as a plaintiff or defendant as has occurred with CrestaTech, not only will this be time-consuming, but we will also be forced to incur significant costs and divert our attention and efforts of our employees, which could, in turn, result in lower revenue and higher expenses.
We also rely on customary contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees and consultants, and we implement security measures to protect our trade secrets. We cannot assure you that these contractual protections and security measures will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any such breach or that our suppliers, employees or consultants will not assert rights to intellectual property arising out of such contracts.
In addition, we have a number of third-party patent and intellectual property license agreements. Some of these license agreements require us to make one-time payments or ongoing royalty payments. Also, a few of our license agreements contain most-favored nation clauses or other price restriction clauses which may affect the amount we may charge for our products, processes or technology. We cannot guarantee that the third-party patents and technology we license will not be licensed to our competitors or others in the semiconductor industry. In the future, we may need to obtain additional licenses, renew existing license agreements or otherwise replace existing technology. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed or the technology can be replaced on acceptable terms, or at all.
When we settled a trademark dispute with Linear Technology Corporation, we agreed not to register the “MAXLINEAR” mark or any other marks containing the term “LINEAR”. We may continue to use “MAXLINEAR” as a corporate identifier, including to advertise our products and services, but may not use that mark on our products. The agreement does not affect our ability to use our registered trademark “MxL”, which we use on our products. Due to our agreement not to register the “MAXLINEAR” mark, our ability to effectively prevent third parties from using the “MAXLINEAR” mark in connection with similar products or technology may be affected. If we are unable to protect our trademarks, we may experience difficulties in achieving and maintaining brand recognition and customer loyalty.
We may be subject to information technology failures, including data protection breaches and cyber-attacks, that could disrupt our operations, damage our reputation and adversely affect our business, operations, and financial results.
We rely on our information technology systems for the effective operation of our business and for the secure maintenance and storage of confidential data relating to our business and third party businesses. Although we have implemented security controls to protect our information technology systems, experienced programmers or hackers may be able to penetrate our security controls, and develop and deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs that compromise our confidential information or that of third parties and cause a disruption or failure of our information technology
systems. In addition, we have in the past and may in the future be subject to "phishing" attacks in which third parties send emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to obtain personal information and infiltrate our systems to initiate wire transfers or otherwise obtain proprietary or confidential information. A number of large, public companies have recently experienced losses based on phishing attacks. Any compromise of our information technology systems could result in the unauthorized publication of our confidential business or proprietary information, result in the unauthorized release of customer, supplier or employee data, result in a violation of privacy or other laws, expose us to a risk of litigation, cause us to incur direct losses if attackers access our bank or investment accounts, or damage our reputation. The cost and operational consequences of implementing further data protection measures either as a response to specific breaches or as a result of evolving risks, could be significant. In addition, our inability to use or access our information systems at critical points in time could adversely affect the timely and efficient operation of our business. Any delayed sales, significant costs or lost customers resulting from these technology failures could adversely affect our business, operations and financial results.
Third parties with which we conduct business, such as foundries, assembly and test contractors, and distributors, have access to certain portions of our sensitive data. In the event that these third parties do not properly safeguard our data that they hold, security breaches could result and negatively impact our business, operations and financial results.
We rely on a limited number of third parties to manufacture, assemble and test our products, and the failure to manage our relationships with our third-party contractors successfully could adversely affect our ability to market and sell our products.
We do not have our own manufacturing facilities. We operate an outsourced manufacturing business model that utilizes third-party foundry and assembly and test capabilities. As a result, we rely on third-party foundry wafer fabrication and assembly and test capacity, including sole sourcing for many components or products. Currently, the majority of our products are manufactured by United Microelectronics Corporation, or UMC, Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Global Foundries, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, or TSMC, Tower-Jazz Semiconductor, and WIN Semiconductor at foundries in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, China, and the United States. We also use third-party contractors for all of our assembly and test operations.
Relying on third party manufacturing, assembly and testing presents significant risks to us, including the following:
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failure by us, our customers, or their end customers to qualify a selected supplier;
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capacity shortages during periods of high demand;
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reduced control over delivery schedules and quality;
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shortages of materials;
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misappropriation of our intellectual property;
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limited warranties on wafers or products supplied to us; and
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potential increases in prices.
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The ability and willingness of our third-party contractors to perform is largely outside 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. For example, in the event that manufacturing capacity is reduced or eliminated at one or more facilities, including as a response to the recent worldwide decline 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 fail to deliver quality products and components on time and at reasonable prices, we could have difficulties fulfilling our customer orders, our net revenue could decline and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.
Additionally, our manufacturing capacity may be similarly reduced or eliminated at one or more facilities due to the fact that our fabrication and assembly and test contractors are all located in the Pacific Rim region, principally in China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. The risk of earthquakes in these geographies is significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines, and Taiwan in particular is also subject to typhoons and other Pacific storms. Earthquakes, fire, flooding, or other natural disasters in Taiwan or the Pacific Rim region, or political unrest, war, labor strikes, work stoppages or public health crises, such as outbreaks of H1N1 flu, in countries where our contractors’ facilities are located could result in the disruption of our foundry, assembly or test capacity. Any disruption resulting from these events could cause significant delays in shipments of our products until we are able to shift our manufacturing, assembly or test from the affected contractor to another third-party vendor. There can be no assurance that alternative capacity could be obtained on favorable terms, if at all.
We do not have any long-term supply contracts with our contract manufacturers or suppliers, and any disruption in our supply of products or materials could have a material adverse effect on our business, revenue and operating results.
We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of our third-party vendors, including but, not limited to UMC, Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Global Foundries, SMIC, TSMC, Jazz Semiconductor, and WIN Semiconductor. We make substantially all of our purchases on a purchase order basis, and our contract manufacturers are not required to supply us products for any specific period or in any specific quantity. Foundry capacity may not be available when we need it or at reasonable prices. Availability of foundry capacity has in the past been reduced from time to time due to strong demand. Foundries can allocate capacity to the production of other companies’ products and reduce deliveries to us on short notice. It is possible that foundry customers that are larger and better financed than we are, or that have long-term agreements with our foundry, may induce our foundry to reallocate capacity to them. This reallocation could impair our ability to secure the supply of components that we need. We expect that it would take approximately nine to twelve months to transition performance of our foundry or assembly services to new providers. Such a transition would likely require a qualification process by our customers or their end customers. We generally place orders for products with some of our suppliers approximately four to five months prior to the anticipated delivery date, with order volumes based on our forecasts of demand from our customers. Accordingly, if we inaccurately forecast demand for our products, we may be unable to obtain adequate and cost-effective foundry or assembly capacity from our third-party contractors to meet our customers’ delivery requirements, or we may accumulate excess inventories. On occasion, we have been unable to adequately respond to unexpected increases in customer purchase orders and therefore were unable to benefit from this incremental demand. None of our third-party contractors has provided any assurance to us that adequate capacity will be available to us within the time required to meet additional demand for our products.
To address capacity considerations, we are in the process of qualifying additional semiconductor fabricators. Qualification will not occur if we identify a defect in a fabricator’s manufacturing process or if our customers choose not to invest the time and expense required to qualify the proposed fabricator. If full qualification of a fabricator does not occur, we may not be able to sell all of the materials produced by this fabricator or to fulfill demand for our products, which would adversely affect our business, revenue and operating results. In addition, the resulting write-off of unusable inventories would have an adverse effect on our operating results.
We may have difficulty accurately predicting our future revenue and appropriately budgeting our expenses particularly as we seek to enter new markets where we may not have prior experience.
Our recent operating history has focused on developing integrated circuits for specific terrestrial, cable and satellite television, and broadband voice and data applications, and as part of our strategy, we seek to expand our addressable market into new product categories. For example, we previously expanded into the market for satellite set-top and gateway boxes and outdoor units and physical medium devices for the optical interconnect markets, and through the Broadcom and Microsemi business line acquisitions in 2016, we have entered the markets for wireless telecommunications infrastructure. Through the acquisition of the G.hn business of Marvell in April 2017, we are currently expanding into the wired whole-home broadband connectivity market. With our acquisition of Exar in May 2017, we also entered the markets for power management and interface technologies which are functions in wireless and wireline communications infrastructure, broadband access, industrial, enterprise network, and automotive applications. Our limited operating experience in these new markets or potential markets we may enter, combined with the rapidly evolving nature of our markets in general, substantial uncertainty concerning how these markets may develop and other factors beyond our control, reduces our ability to accurately forecast quarterly or annual revenue. If our revenue does not increase as anticipated, we could incur significant losses due to our higher expense levels if we are not able to decrease our expenses in a timely manner to offset any shortfall in future revenue.
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 and finance, and especially our design and technical personnel. We do not know whether we will be able to retain all of these personnel as we continue to pursue our business strategy. Historically, we have encountered difficulties in hiring and retaining qualified engineers because there is a limited pool of engineers with the expertise required in our field. Competition for these 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 one or more of our 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.
Our business would be adversely affected by the departure of existing members of our senior management team.
Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of our senior management team. None of our senior management team is bound by written employment contracts to remain with us for a specified period. In addition, we have not
entered into non-compete agreements with members of our senior management team. The loss of any member of our senior management team could harm our ability to implement our business strategy and respond to the rapidly changing market conditions in which we operate.
Our customers require our products and our third-party contractors to undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process which does not assure product sales.
Prior to purchasing our products, our customers require that both our products and our third-party contractors undergo extensive qualification processes, which involve testing of the products in the customer’s system and rigorous reliability testing. This qualification process may continue for six months or more. However, qualification of a product by a customer does not assure any sales of the product to that customer. Even after successful qualification and sales of a product to a customer, a subsequent revision our solutions, or changes in our customer’s manufacturing process or our selection of a new supplier may require a new qualification process, which may result in delays and in us holding excess or obsolete inventory. After our products are qualified, it can take six months or more before the customer commences volume production of components or devices that incorporate our products. Despite these uncertainties, we devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualifying our products with customers in anticipation of sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, sales of this product to the customer may be precluded or delayed, which may impede our growth and cause our business to suffer.
We are subject to risks associated with our distributors’ product inventories and product sell-through. Should any of our distributors cease or be forced to stop distributing our products, our business would suffer.
We currently sell a significant portion of our products to customers through our distributors, who maintain their own inventories of our products. For the
six months ended
June 30, 2017
, sales through distributors accounted for
24%
of our net revenue. For these distributor transactions, revenue is not currently recognized until product is shipped to the end customer and the amount that will ultimately be collected is fixed or determinable. Upon shipment of product to these distributors, title to the inventory transfers to the distributor and the distributor is invoiced, generally with 30 to 60 day terms. On shipments to our distributors where revenue is not recognized, we record a trade receivable for the selling price as there is a legally enforceable right to payment, relieving the inventory for the carrying value of goods shipped since legal title has passed to the distributor, and record the corresponding gross profit in the consolidated balance sheet as a component of deferred revenue and deferred profit, representing the difference between the receivable recorded and the cost of inventory shipped. Future pricing credits and/or stock rotation rights from our distributors may result in the realization of a different amount of profit included our future consolidated statements of operations than the amount recorded as deferred profit in our consolidated balance sheets.
If our distributors are unable to sell an adequate amount of their inventories of our products in a given quarter to manufacturers and end users or if they decide to decrease their inventories of our products for any reason, our sales through these distributors and our revenue may decline. In addition, if some distributors decide to purchase more of our products than are required to satisfy end customer demand in any particular quarter, inventories at these distributors would grow in that quarter. These distributors likely would reduce future orders until inventory levels realign with end customer demand, which could adversely affect our product revenue in a subsequent quarter.
Our reserve estimates with respect to the products stocked by our distributors are based principally on reports provided to us by our distributors, typically on a weekly basis. 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 are subject to order and shipment uncertainties, and differences between our estimates of customer demand and product mix and our actual results could negatively affect our inventory levels, sales and operating results.
Our revenue is generated on the basis of purchase orders with our customers rather than long-term purchase commitments. In addition, our customers can cancel purchase orders or defer the shipments of our products under certain circumstances. Our products are manufactured using a silicon foundry according to our estimates of customer demand, which requires us to make separate demand forecast assumptions for every customer, each of which may introduce significant variability into our aggregate estimate. We have limited visibility into future customer demand and the product mix that our customers will require, which could adversely affect our revenue forecasts and operating margins. Moreover, because our target markets are relatively new, many of our customers have difficulty accurately forecasting their product requirements and estimating the timing of their new product introductions, which ultimately affects their demand for our products. Historically, because of this limited visibility, actual results have been different from our forecasts of customer demand. Some of these differences have been material, leading to excess inventory or product shortages and revenue and margin forecasts above those we were actually able to achieve. These differences may occur in the future, and the adverse impact of these differences between forecasts and actual results could grow if we are successful in selling more products to some customers. In addition, the rapid pace of innovation in our industry could render significant portions of our inventory obsolete. Excess or obsolete
inventory levels could result in unexpected expenses or increases in our reserves that could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Conversely, if we were to underestimate customer demand or if sufficient manufacturing capacity were unavailable, we could forego revenue opportunities, potentially lose market share and damage our customer relationships. In addition, any significant future cancellations or deferrals of product orders or the return of previously sold products due to manufacturing defects could materially and adversely impact our profit margins, increase our write-offs due to product obsolescence and restrict our ability to fund our operations.
Winning business is subject to lengthy competitive selection processes that require us to incur significant expenditures. Even if we begin a product design, customers may decide to cancel or change their product plans, which could cause us to generate no revenue from a product and adversely affect our results of operations.
We are focused on securing design wins to develop RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs, MoCA and G.hn SoCs, DBS-ODU SoCs, physical medium devices for optical modules, interface and power management devices, and SoC solutions targeting infrastructure opportunities within the telecommunications, wireless, and cable operator markets for use in our customers’ products. These selection processes typically are 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 some of our customers’ products likely will have short life cycles. Failure to obtain a design win could prevent us from offering an entire generation of a product, even though this has not occurred to date. This could cause us to lose revenue and require us to write off obsolete inventory, and could weaken our position in future competitive selection processes. After securing a design win, we may experience delays in generating revenue from our products as a result of the lengthy development cycle typically required. Our customers generally take a considerable amount of time to evaluate our products. The typical time from early engagement by our sales force to actual product introduction runs from nine to twelve months for the consumer market, to as much as 36 months or more for the cable operator and telecommunications infrastructure markets, and beyond 36 months in the wired and wireless infrastructure markets. The delays inherent in these lengthy sales cycles increase the risk that a customer will decide to cancel, curtail, reduce or delay its product plans, causing us to lose anticipated sales. In addition, any delay or cancellation of a customer’s plans could materially and adversely affect our financial results, as we may have incurred significant expense and generated no revenue. Finally, our customers’ failure to successfully market and sell their products could reduce demand for our products and materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we were unable to generate revenue after incurring substantial expenses to develop any of our products, our business would suffer.
Our operating results are subject to substantial quarterly and annual fluctuations and may fluctuate significantly due to a number of factors that could adversely affect our business and our stock price.
Our revenue and operating results have fluctuated in the past and are likely to fluctuate in the future. These fluctuations may occur on a quarterly and on an annual basis and are due to a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include, among others:
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changes in end-user demand for the products manufactured and sold by our customers;
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the receipt, reduction or cancellation of significant orders by customers;
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fluctuations in the levels of component inventories held by our customers;
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the gain or loss of significant customers;
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market acceptance of our products and our customers’ products;
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our ability to develop, introduce and market new products and technologies on a timely basis;
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the timing and extent of product development costs;
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new product announcements and introductions by us or our competitors;
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incurrence of research and development and related new product expenditures;
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seasonality or cyclical fluctuations in our markets;
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fluctuations in IC manufacturing yields;
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significant warranty claims, including those not covered by our suppliers;
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changes in our product mix or customer mix;
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intellectual property disputes;
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loss of key personnel or the shortage of available skilled workers;
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impairment of long-lived assets, including masks and production equipment; and
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the effects of competitive pricing pressures, including decreases in average selling prices of our products.
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These factors are difficult to forecast, and these, as well as other factors, could materially adversely affect our quarterly or annual operating results. We typically are required to incur substantial development costs in advance of a prospective sale with no certainty that we will ever recover these costs. A substantial amount of time may pass between a design win and the generation of revenue related to the expenses previously incurred, which can potentially cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly from period to period. In addition, a significant amount of our operating expenses are relatively fixed in nature due to our significant sales, research and development costs. Any failure to adjust spending quickly enough to compensate for a revenue shortfall could magnify its adverse impact on our results of operations.
We are subject to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry.
The semiconductor industry is highly cyclical and is characterized by constant and rapid technological change, rapid product obsolescence and price erosion, evolving standards, short product life cycles and wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. Any future downturns may result in diminished product demand, production overcapacity, high inventory levels and accelerated erosion of average selling prices. Furthermore, any upturn in the semiconductor industry could result in increased competition for access to third-party foundry and assembly capacity. We are dependent on the availability of this capacity to manufacture and assemble our all of our products. None of our third-party foundry or assembly contractors has provided assurances that adequate capacity will be available to us in the future. A significant downturn or upturn could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.
The use of open source software in our products, processes and technology may expose us to additional risks and harm our intellectual property.
Our products, processes and technology sometimes utilize and incorporate software that is subject to an open source license. Open source software is typically freely accessible, usable and modifiable. Certain open source software licenses require a user who intends to distribute the open source software as a component of the user’s software to disclose publicly part or all of the source code to the user’s software. In addition, certain open source software licenses require the user of such software to make any derivative works of the open source code available to others on unfavorable terms or at no cost. This can subject previously proprietary software to open source license terms.
While we monitor the use of all open source software in our products, processes and technology and try to ensure that no open source software is used in such a way as to require us to disclose the source code to the related product, processes or technology when we do not wish to do so, such use could inadvertently occur. Additionally, if a third-party software provider has incorporated certain types of open source software into software we license from such third party for our products, processes or technology, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the source code to our products, processes or technology. This could harm our intellectual property position and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We rely on third parties to provide services and technology necessary for the operation of our business. Any failure of one or more of our partners, vendors, suppliers or licensors to provide these services or technology could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We rely on third-party vendors to provide critical services, including, among other things, services related to accounting, billing, human resources, information technology, network development, network monitoring, in-licensing and intellectual property that we cannot or do not create or provide ourselves. 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 and 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 these 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.
Additionally, we incorporate third-party technology into and with some of our products, and we may do so in future products. The operation of our products could be impaired if errors occur in the third-party technology we use. It may be more difficult for us to correct any errors in a timely manner if at all because the development and maintenance of the technology is not within our control. There can be no assurance that these third parties will continue to make their technology, or improvements to the technology, available to us, or that they will continue to support and maintain their technology. Further, due to the limited number of vendors of some types of technology, it may be difficult to obtain new licenses or replace existing technology. Any impairment of the technology or our relationship with these third parties could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Unanticipated changes in our tax rates or unanticipated tax obligations could affect our future results.
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. The amount of income taxes we pay is subject to our interpretation and application of tax laws in jurisdictions in which we file. Changes in current or future laws or regulations, the imposition of new or changed tax laws or regulations or new interpretations by taxing authorities or courts could affect our results of operations and lead to volatility with respect tax expenses and liabilities from period to period. The application of tax laws and related regulations is subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. We cannot determine whether any legislative proposals may be enacted into law or what, if any, changes may be made to such proposals prior to their being enacted into law. If U.S. or international tax laws change in a manner that increases our tax obligation, it could result in a material adverse impact on our net income and our financial position. We are subject to examinations and tax audits. There can be no assurance that the outcome from these audits will not have an adverse effect on our operating results or financial position.
We adopted amendments to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles related to stock-based compensation in the second quarter of 2016 and included excess tax benefits associated with employee stock-based compensation in income tax expense. However, since the amount of such excess tax benefits and deficiencies depend on the fair market value of our common stock, our income tax provision is now subject to volatility in our stock price and in the future, could unfavorably affect our future effective tax rate.
Our future effective tax rate could be unfavorably affected by unanticipated changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, and the ultimate use and depletion of these various tax credits and net operating loss carryforwards. Changes in our effective tax rate could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations. We record a valuation allowance to reduce our net deferred tax assets to the amount that we believe is more likely than not to be realized. In making such determination, the Company considers all available positive and negative evidence quarterly, including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax planning strategies, and recent financial performance.
To the extent we believe it is more likely than not that some portion of our deferred tax assets will not be realized, we record a valuation allowance against the deferred tax asset. Realization of our deferred tax assets is dependent primarily upon future taxable income in the applicable jurisdiction. During the quarter ended June 30, 2017, we released the valuation allowance against U.S. federal deferred tax assets. Based upon our review of all positive and negative evidence, we concluded that a full valuation allowance should continue to be recorded against our state and certain foreign net deferred tax assets at
June 30, 2017
. On a periodic basis we evaluate our deferred tax assets for realizability. The impact of releasing some or all of such valuation allowance in a future period could be material in the period in which such release occurs.
Our corporate income tax liability could materially increase if tax incentives we have negotiated in Singapore cease to be effective or applicable or if we are challenged on our use of such incentives.
Effective in the second quarter of 2017, we began to operate under certain favorable tax incentives in Singapore which are effective through March 2022 and may be extended through March 2027. Such incentives allow certain qualifying income earned in Singapore to be taxed at reduced rates and are conditional upon our meeting certain employment and investment thresholds over time. If we fail to satisfy the conditions for receipt of these tax incentives, or to the extent US or other tax authorities challenge our operation under these favorable tax incentive programs or our intercompany transfer pricing agreements, our taxable income could be taxed at higher federal or foreign statutory rates and our income tax liability and expense could materially increase beyond our projections. Each of our Singapore tax incentives 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. The tax incentives are presently scheduled to expire at various dates generally beginning in 2027, subject in certain cases to potential extensions, which we may or may not be able to obtain. Absent these tax incentives,
our corporate income tax rate in Singapore is expected to be 17%. We are also subject to operating and other compliance requirements to maintain our favorable tax incentives. If we fail to comply with such requirements, we would lose the tax benefits and could possibly be required to refund previously realized material tax benefits. Additionally, in the future, we may fail to qualify for renewal of our favorable tax incentives or such incentives may not be available to us, which could also cause our future taxable income to increase and be taxed at higher statutory rates. Loss of one more of our tax incentives could cause us to modify our tax strategies and our operational structure, which could cause disruption in our business and have a material adverse impact on our results of operations. Further, there can be no guarantee that such modification in our tax strategy will yield tax incentives as favorable as those we have negotiated with Singapore. 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.
Global economic conditions, including factors that adversely affect consumer spending for the products that incorporate our integrated circuits, could adversely affect our revenues, margins, and operating results.
Our products are incorporated in numerous consumer devices, and demand for such products will ultimately be driven by consumer demand for products such as televisions, personal computers, automobiles, cable modems, smartphones, and set-top boxes. Many of these purchases are discretionary. Global economic volatility and economic volatility in the specific markets in which the devices that incorporate our products are ultimately sold can cause extreme difficulties for our customers and third-party vendors in accurately forecasting and planning future business activities. This unpredictability could cause our customers to reduce spending on our products, which would delay and lengthen sales cycles. Furthermore, during challenging economic times our customers may face challenges in gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impact their ability to make timely payments to us. These events, together with economic volatility that may face the broader economy and, in particular, the semiconductor and communications industries, may adversely affect, our business, particularly to the extent that consumers decrease their discretionary spending for devices deploying our products.
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. Products shipped to Asia accounted for
93%
of our net revenue in the
six months ended
June 30, 2017
, respectively. In addition, as of
June 30, 2017
, approximately
50%
of our employees are located outside of the United States. All of our products are manufactured, assembled and tested in Asia, and all of our major distributors are located in Asia. 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:
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changes in political, regulatory, legal or economic conditions;
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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;
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disruptions of capital and trading markets;
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changes in import or export licensing requirements;
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civil disturbances or political instability;
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geopolitical turmoil, including terrorism, war or political or military coups;
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public health emergencies;
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differing employment practices and labor standards;
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limitations on our ability under local laws to protect our intellectual property;
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local business and cultural factors that differ from our customary standards and practices;
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nationalization and expropriation;
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currency fluctuations relating to our international operating activities; and
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difficulty in obtaining distribution and support.
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In addition to a significant portion of our wafer supply coming from Taiwan, Singapore, China and Malaysia, substantially all of our products undergo packaging and final testing in Taiwan, Singapore, China, South Korea, and the Philippines. Any conflict or uncertainty in these countries, including due to natural disaster 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 some 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. We also are subject to risks associated with international political conflicts involving the U.S. government. For example, in 2008, we were instructed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to cease using Polar Star International Company Limited, a distributor based in Hong Kong, that delivered third-party products, to a political group that the U.S. government did not believe should have been provided with the products in question. As a result, we immediately ceased all business operations with that distributor. Similarly, we ceased business operations with entities affiliated with ZTE Corp. when the Bureau of Industry and Security at the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed an export licensing requirement, which was subsequently suspended through March 28, 2017. Such suspension was lifted as of March 29, 2017. We cannot provide assurances that similar disruptions in the future of distribution arrangements or the imposition of governmental prohibitions on selling our products to particular customers will not adversely affect our revenues and operating results. Loss of a key distributor or customer under similar circumstances could have an adverse effect on our business, revenues and operating results.
If we suffer losses to our facilities or distribution system due to catastrophe, our operations could be seriously harmed.
Our facilities and distribution system, and those of our third-party contractors, are subject to risk of catastrophic loss due to fire, flood or other natural or man-made disasters. A number of our facilities and those of our contract manufacturers are located in areas with above average seismic activity. The risk of an earthquake in the Pacific Rim region or Southern California is significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines. Any catastrophic loss 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. The majority of the factories we use for Foundry, Assembly and Test, and warehousing services, are located in Asia. Our corporate headquarters is located in Southern California.
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 international and U.S. laws and other legal requirements, including packaging, product content, labor, import/export control regulations, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. These regulations are complex, change frequently and have generally become more stringent over time. We may be required to incur significant costs to comply with these regulations or to remedy violations. 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.
For example, the SEC adopted a final rule to implement Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which requires new disclosures concerning the use of conflict minerals, generally tantalum, tin, gold, or tungsten that originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country. These disclosures are required whether or not these products containing conflict minerals are manufactured by us or third parties. Verifying the source of any conflict minerals in our products has created and will continue to create additional costs in order to comply with the new disclosure requirements and we may not be able to certify that the metals in our products are conflict free, which may create issues with our customers. In addition, the new rule may affect the pricing, sourcing and availability of minerals used in the manufacture of our products.
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 in commerce until the products or component substances are brought into compliance.
Investor confidence may be adversely impacted if we are unable to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and as a result, our stock price could decline.
We are subject to rules adopted by the Securities Exchange Commission, or SEC, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which require us to include in our Annual Report on Form 10-K our management’s report on, and assessment of the effectiveness of, our internal controls over financial reporting.
If we fail to maintain the adequacy of our internal controls, there is a risk that we will not comply with all of the requirements imposed by Section 404. Moreover, effective internal controls, particularly those related to revenue recognition, are necessary for us to produce reliable financial reports and are important to helping prevent financial fraud. Any of these possible outcomes could result in an adverse reaction in the financial marketplace due to a loss of investor confidence in the reliability of our consolidated financial statements and could result in investigations or sanctions by the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, or other regulatory authorities or in stockholder litigation. Any of these factors ultimately could harm our business and could negatively impact the market price of our securities. Ineffective control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock.
Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to provide reasonable assurance of achieving their objectives. However, our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures will prevent all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected.
Our products must conform to industry standards in order to be accepted by end users in our markets.
Generally, our products comprise only a part of a communications device. All components of these devices must uniformly comply with industry standards in order to operate efficiently together. We depend on companies that provide other components of the devices to support prevailing industry standards. Many of these companies are significantly larger and more influential in driving industry standards than we are. Some industry standards may not be widely adopted or implemented uniformly, and competing standards may emerge that may be preferred by our customers or end users. If larger companies do not support the same industry standards that we do, or if competing standards emerge, market acceptance of our products could be adversely affected, which would harm our business.
Products for communications applications are based on industry standards that are continually evolving. Our ability to compete in the future will depend on our ability to identify and ensure compliance with these evolving industry standards. The emergence of new industry standards could render our products incompatible with products developed by other suppliers. As a result, we could be required to invest significant time and effort and to incur significant expense to redesign our products to ensure compliance with relevant standards. If our products are not in compliance with prevailing industry standards for a significant period of time, we could miss opportunities to achieve crucial design wins. We may not be successful in developing or using new technologies or in developing new products or product enhancements that achieve market acceptance. Our pursuit of necessary technological advances may require substantial time and expense.
Risks Relating to Our Common Stock
Our management team may use our available cash, cash equivalents, and liquid investment assets in ways with which you may not agree or in ways which may not yield a return.
We use our cash, cash equivalents, and liquid investment assets for general corporate purposes, including working capital. We may also use a portion of these assets to acquire complementary businesses, products, services or technologies. Our management has considerable discretion in the application of our cash, cash equivalents, and investment resources, and you will not have the opportunity to assess whether these liquid assets are being used in a manner that you deem best to maximize your return. We may use our available resources for corporate purposes that do not increase our operating results or market value. In addition, our cash, cash equivalents, and liquid investment resources may be placed in investments that do not produce significant income or that may lose value
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.
Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, as amended and restated, may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. These provisions provide for the following:
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authorize our Board of Directors to issue, without further action by the stockholders, up to 25,000,000 shares of undesignated preferred stock;
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require that any action to be taken by our stockholders be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting and not by written consent;
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specify that special meetings of our stockholders can be called only by our Board of Directors, our Chairman of the Board of Directors, or our President;
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establish an advance notice procedure for stockholder approvals to be brought before an annual meeting of our stockholders, including proposed nominations of persons for election to our Board of Directors;
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establish that our Board of Directors is divided into three classes, Class I, Class II and Class III, with each class serving staggered terms;
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provide that our directors may be removed only for cause;
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provide that vacancies on our Board of Directors may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum;
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specify that no stockholder is permitted to cumulate votes at any election of directors; and
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require supermajority votes of the holders of our common stock to amend specified provisions of our charter documents.
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These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our Board of Directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder.
Our share price may be volatile as a result of limited trading volume and other factors.
Our common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2010. An active public market for our shares on the New York Stock Exchange may not be sustained. In particular, we have experienced limited trading volumes and liquidity in the past, and similar issues in the future could limit the ability of stockholders to purchase or sell our common stock in the amounts and at the times they wish. Trading volume in our common stock is sometimes modest relative to our total outstanding shares, and the price of our common stock may fluctuate substantially (particularly in percentage terms) without regard to news about us or general trends in the stock market. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.
In addition, the trading price of our common stock could become highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include those discussed in this “Risk Factors” section of the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and others such as:
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actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results;
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overall conditions in the semiconductor market;
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addition or loss of significant customers;
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changes in laws or regulations applicable to our products;
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actual or anticipated changes in our growth rate relative to our competitors;
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announcements of technological innovations by us or our competitors;
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announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;
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additions or departures of key personnel;
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competition from existing products or new products that may emerge;
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issuance of new or updated research or reports by securities analysts;
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fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;
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disputes or other developments related to proprietary rights, including patents, litigation matters and our ability to obtain intellectual property protection for our technologies;
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the recently completed acquisitions may not be accretive and may cause dilution to our earnings per shares;
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announcement or expectation of additional financing efforts;
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sales of our common stock by us or our stockholders;
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share price and volume fluctuations attributable to inconsistent trading volume levels of our shares; and
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general economic and market conditions.
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Furthermore, the stock markets recently have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes or international currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish negative reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our shares, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our Company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
Future sales of our common stock in the public market could cause our share price to decline.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. As of
June 30, 2017
, we had
66.5 million
shares of common stock outstanding.
All shares of common stock are freely tradable without restrictions or further registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act.
Our Executive Incentive Bonus Plan permits the settlement of awards under the plan in the form of shares of our common stock. We have issued shares of our common stock to settle such bonus awards for our employees, including executives, for the 2014, 2015 and 2016 performance periods, and we intend to continue this practice in the foreseeable future. We issued
0.2 million
shares of our common stock for the July 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016 performance period on February 17, 2017. These shares may be freely sold in the public market immediately following the issuance of such shares and the issuance of such shares may have an adverse effect on our share price once they are issued.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the development of our business and
for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Risks Relating to Our Recent Acquisitions
In addition to our recent acquisitions, we may, from time to time, make additional business acquisitions or investments, which involve significant risks.
In addition to our recent acquisition of Exar Corporation, or Exar, which we acquired in May 2017, we also acquired the G.hn business of Marvell Technology Group Ltd., or Marvell, which we completed in April 2017, the wireless infrastructure backhaul business of Broadcom Corporation, or Broadcom, which we completed in the third quarter of fiscal 2016, the
wireless infrastructure access business
of Microsemi Storage Solutions, Inc., or Microsemi, which we completed in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, Entropic Communications, Inc., or Entropic, which we completed in the second quarter of fiscal 2015, and Physpeed, Co., Ltd., or Physpeed, which we completed in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. We may, from time to time, make acquisitions, enter into alliances or make investments in other businesses to complement our existing product offerings, augment our market coverage or enhance our technological capabilities. However, any such transactions could result in:
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issuances of equity securities dilutive to our existing stockholders;
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substantial cash payments;
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the incurrence of substantial debt and assumption of unknown liabilities;
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large one-time write-offs;
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amortization expenses related to intangible assets;
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a limitation on our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards;
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the diversion of management’s time and attention from operating our business to acquisition integration challenges;
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stockholder or other litigation relating to the transaction;
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adverse tax consequences; and
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the potential loss of key employees, customers and suppliers of the acquired business.
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Additionally, in periods subsequent to an acquisition, we must evaluate goodwill and acquisition-related intangible assets for impairment. If such assets are found to be impaired, they will be written down to estimated fair value, with a charge against earnings.
Integrating acquired organizations and their products and services, including the integration of completed acquisitions, may be expensive, time-consuming and a strain on our resources and our relationships with employees, customers, distributors and suppliers, and ultimately may not be successful. The benefits or synergies we may expect from the acquisition of complementary or supplementary businesses may not be realized to the extent or in the time frame we initially anticipate. Some of the risks that may affect our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, including Exar, the G.hn business of Marvell, the wireless infrastructure backhaul business of Broadcom, the
wireless infrastructure access business
of Microsemi, Entropic and Physpeed, include those associated with:
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failure to successfully further develop the acquired products or technology;
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conforming the acquired company’s standards, policies, processes, procedures and controls with our operations;
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coordinating new product and process development, especially with respect to highly complex technologies;
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loss of key employees or customers of the acquired company;
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hiring additional management and other critical personnel;
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in the case of foreign acquisitions, the need to integrate operations across different cultures and languages and to address the particular economic, currency, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries;
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increasing the scope, geographic diversity and complexity of our operations;
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consolidation of facilities, integration of the acquired company’s accounting, human resource and other administrative functions and coordination of product, engineering and sales and marketing functions;
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the geographic distance between the companies;
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liability for activities of the acquired company before the acquisition, including patent and trademark infringement claims, violations of laws, commercial disputes, tax liabilities and other known and unknown liabilities; and
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litigation or other claims in connection with the acquired company, including claims for terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties.
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On or about August 2, 2016, Trango Systems, Inc., or Trango, filed a complaint in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, Central Division, against defendants Broadcom and us, collectively, Defendants. Trango is a purchaser that alleges fraud, breach of contract, and interference with economic relations claims in connection with the discontinuance of a chip line we acquired from Broadcom in 2016. Trango seeks unspecified general and special damages, pre-judgment interest, expenses and costs, attorneys’ fees, punitive damages, and unspecified injunctive and equitable relief. We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit. On June 23, 2017, the Court sustained our demurrer to each cause of action in the second amended complaint, filed on or about December 6, 2016. The Court provided Trango leave to amend its complaint, and on or about July 13, 2017, Trango filed its third amended complaint. Our response to Trango’s third amended complaint is due August 17, 2017.
Also, on April 18, 2017, The Vladimir Gusinsky Revocable Trust, a purported stockholder of Exar Corporation, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Exar, its board of directors, MaxLinear, and Eagle Acquisition Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of MaxLinear). Another similar lawsuit was filed by purported Exar stockholder Richard E. Marshall on April 25, 2017. The
Marshall
lawsuit does not name MaxLinear or Eagle Acquisition Corp. as defendants. The complaints generally allege that the merger with Exar offers inadequate consideration to Exar’s shareholders and that the Schedule 14D-9 filed by Exar in connection with the merger omits material information. The complaints purport to bring class claims for violation of sections 14(e), 14(d), and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 14d-9. The complaints seek certification of a class; an injunction barring the merger or, if defendants enter into the merger, an order rescinding it or awarding rescissory damages; declaratory relief; and plaintiff’s costs, including attorneys’ fees and experts’ fees. Additional similar lawsuits may be filed in the future. The defendants intend to vigorously defend against this and any subsequently filed similar actions.
On or about May 3, 2017, the parties to the above-referenced lawsuits reached an agreement in principle whereby plaintiffs will voluntarily dismiss the claims brought by Mr. Marshall and The Vladimir Gusinsky Revocable Trust with prejudice (but without prejudice as to other members of the putative class), defendants will make certain supplemental disclosures, and the plaintiffs will seek a mootness fee. On May 3, 2017, Exar made the supplemental disclosures contemplated by this agreement in principle. The parties are in discussions concerning plaintiff's claim for a mootness fee. Should the parties be unable to reach agreement on the amount, plantiffs intend to file a fee application with the court.
We cannot predict the outcome of the Trango and Exar litigation. Any adverse determination in the Trango or Exar litigation could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.
Actual financial and operating results could differ materially from any expectations or guidance provided by us concerning future results, including (without limitation) expectations or guidance with respect to the financial impact of any cost savings and other potential synergies resulting from our recent acquisitions.
We currently expect to continue realizing material cost savings and other synergies as a result of recent acquisitions, and as a result, we currently believe that these acquisitions will continue to be accretive to our earnings per share, excluding upfront non-recurring charges, transaction related expenses, and the amortization of purchased intangible assets. The expectations and guidance we have provided with respect to the potential financial impact of the acquisitions are subject to numerous assumptions, however, including assumptions derived from our diligence efforts concerning the status of and prospects for the acquired businesses, and assumptions relating to the near-term prospects for the semiconductor industry generally and the markets for the legacy acquired products in particular. Additional assumptions we have made relate to numerous matters, including (without limitation) the following:
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projections of future revenues in the legacy acquired businesses;
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the anticipated financial performance of legacy acquired products and products currently in development;
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anticipated cost savings and other synergies associated with the acquisitions, including potential revenue synergies;
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the amount of goodwill and intangibles that will result from the acquisitions;
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certain other purchase accounting adjustments that we have recorded in our financial statements in connection with the acquisitions;
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acquisition costs, including restructuring charges and transactions costs payable to our financial, legal, and accounting advisors; and
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our ability to maintain, develop, and deepen relationships with customers of the legacy acquired businesses.
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We cannot provide any assurances with respect to the accuracy of our assumptions, including our assumptions with respect to future revenues or revenue growth rates, if any, of the legacy acquired businesses, and we cannot provide assurances with respect to our ability to realize further cost savings. Risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from currently anticipated results include, but are not limited to, risks relating to our ability to integrate the legacy acquired business successfully; currently unanticipated additional incremental costs that we may incur in connection with integrating the two companies; risks relating to our ability to continue to realize incremental revenues from the acquisition in the amounts that we currently anticipate; risks relating to the willingness of legacy acquired customers and other partners to continue to conduct business with MaxLinear; and numerous risks and uncertainties that affect the semiconductor industry generally and the markets for our products and those of the legacy acquired businesses specifically. Any failure to integrate the legacy acquired businesses successfully and to continue to realize the financial benefits we currently anticipate from the acquisition would have a material adverse impact on our future operating results and financial condition and could materially and adversely affect the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
Failure to integrate our business and operations successfully with those of acquired businesses in the expected time-frame or otherwise may adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
Our history of acquiring businesses is recent, and prior to our acquisition of Entropic, we had never pursued an acquisition of that size and complexity. We may complete larger-scale acquisitions in the future. The success of our recent and future acquisitions depends, in substantial part, on our ability to integrate acquired business and operations efficiently and successfully with those of MaxLinear and to realize fully the anticipated benefits and potential synergies from combining our companies, including, among others, cost savings from eliminating duplicative functions; operational efficiencies in our respective supply chains and in research and development investments; and revenue growth resulting from the addition of acquired product portfolios. If we are unable to achieve these objectives, the anticipated benefits and potential synergies from the acquisition may not be realized fully, or may take longer to realize than expected. Any failure to timely realize these anticipated benefits would have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
We completed our recent acquisitions in April 2015, April 2016, July 2016, April 2017 and May 2017. While we believe the integration process is substantially complete for our acquisitions which we closed in 2016 and prior, we are in the process of integrating our 2017 acquisitions. We cannot ensure that implementation of integration objectives will not adversely affect our operating results. In connection with the integration process, we could experience the loss of key customers, decreases in revenues relative to current expectations and increases in operating costs, as well as the disruption of our ongoing businesses, any or all of which could limit our ability to achieve the anticipated benefits and potential synergies from the acquisition and have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Our business relationships, including customer relationships, and those of our acquired businesses may be subject to disruption due to uncertainty associated with the acquisitions.
In response to the completion of our recent acquisitions, customers, vendors, licensors, and other third parties with whom we do business or the acquired entities did business or otherwise have relationships may experience uncertainty associated with the acquisitions, and this uncertainty could materially affect their decisions with respect to existing or future business relationships with us. Moreover, with respect to Entropic’s prior acquisition of certain television and set-top box assets from Trident Microsystems, Inc., or Trident, we were unable to conduct substantial diligence with respect to certain licenses and intellectual property rights because Entropic acquired these assets through Trident’s bankruptcy proceedings. As a result, we are in many instances unable to evaluate the impact of the acquisition on certain assumed contract rights and obligations, including intellectual property rights.
These business relationships may be subject to disruption as customers and others may elect to delay or defer purchase or design-win decisions or switch to other suppliers due to the uncertainty about the direction of our offerings, any perceived
unwillingness on our part to support existing legacy acquired products, or any general perceptions by customers or other third parties that impute operational or business challenges to us arising from the acquisition. In addition, customers or other third parties may attempt to negotiate changes in existing business relationships, which may result in additional obligations imposed on us. These disruptions could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. Any loss of customers, customer products, design win opportunities, or other important strategic relationships could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition and could have a material and adverse effect on the trading price or trading volume of our common stock.
We have incurred and expect to continue to incur substantial expenses related to the operational integration of our recent acquisitions.
We have incurred and expect to continue to incur substantial expenses in connection with integrating the operations, technologies, and business systems of MaxLinear and acquired businesses. Business systems integration between the companies requires, and we expect it to continue to require into the foreseeable future, substantial management attention, including integration of information management, purchasing, accounting and finance, sales, and regulatory compliance functions. Our 2017 acquisitions may also involve running duplicate or parallel systems and processes in short-term periods as we integrate. Numerous factors, many of which, are beyond our control, could affect the total cost or the timing of expected integration expenses. Moreover, many of the expenses that will be incurred are by their nature difficult to estimate accurately at the present time. These expenses could reduce the savings that we expect to achieve from the elimination of duplicative expenses and the realization of economies of scale and cost savings related to the integration of the businesses. These integration expenses have resulted in MaxLinear’s taking significant charges against earnings following the completion of the acquisition.
We have recorded goodwill and other intangible assets that could become impaired and adversely affect our future operating results.
Our business acquisitions are accounted for under the acquisition method of accounting by MaxLinear in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Under the acquisition method of accounting, the assets and liabilities of acquired businesses are recorded, as of completion, at their respective fair values and added to our existing assets and liabilities. Our reported financial condition and results of operations after completion of the acquisition reflect acquired businesses' balances and results but are not restated retroactively to reflect the historical financial position or results of operations of acquired businesses for periods prior to the acquisition. As a result, comparisons of future results against prior period results will be more difficult for investors.
Under the acquisition method of accounting, the total purchase price is allocated to tangible assets and liabilities and identifiable intangible assets of acquired businesses based on their fair values as of the date of completion of the acquisition. The excess of the purchase price over those fair values is recorded as goodwill. The acquisition has resulted in the creation of goodwill based upon the application of the acquisition method of accounting. To the extent the value of goodwill or other intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to incur material charges relating to such impairment. We conduct our annual goodwill impairment analysis on October 31, or more frequently if we believe indicators of impairment exist. In addition, there can be no guarantee that acquired intangible assets, particularly in-process research and development, will generate revenues or profits that we include in our forecast that is the basis for their fair values as of the acquisition date. Any impairment charges relating to goodwill or other intangible assets could have a material impact on our operating results in future periods, and the announcement of a material impairment could have an adverse effect on the trading price and trading volume of our common stock. For example, in the year ended December 31, 2016, we recognized IPR&D impairment losses of $1.3 million related principally to acquired wireless infrastructure access assets, and in the year ended December 31, 2015, we recognized IPR&D impairment losses of $21.6 million related principally to acquired Entropic assets. As of
June 30, 2017
, our balance sheet reflected goodwill of
$238.8 million
and other intangible assets of
$353.5 million
, including IPR&D intangible assets of
$39.2 million
. We could recognize further impairment charges in the future.