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Technology Stocks : Spansion Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: The Ox who wrote (3404)2/16/2008 4:32:12 AM
From: Rink  Respond to of 4590
 
Hi Ox,

re: It sure appears as though most of the negatives are fully priced into the stock but I keep coming back to the following issues. The overall equities market sentiment is at or near record lows. Combine this with the constant negative spin put out by most of the major brokerages with respect to the semi industry in general and we may be seeing the perfect storm for companies like SPSN. Is there a dawn approaching or are we still waiting in the darkness?

That's along how I think as well. Except that I think there's a reasonable chance that the US will go into recession because of the problems in the equity markets (Greenspan). If that would happen it used to have influence on global economy about a year later.

Regards,

Rink

PS, I'm actually a bit testy for the reason you mentioned but try at least not to show that too much in my posts.



To: The Ox who wrote (3404)2/18/2008 11:39:55 AM
From: Pam  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 4590
 
I think the nature and length of the decline in SPSN's price is why many of the posters come off as "testy" whenever someone posts an issue which might be seen as a negative to SPSN's future. I've been enjoying the give and take here as the posters try to make heads or tails of the available data.

Since the price has been declining for a year and a half, its understandable (to this observer) that the "longs" would have a relatively short fuse and very thin skin.


I think you are quite right about being testy, considering what has happened, but that is not going to help them being objective with their SPSN investment and make the right decisions. If you read through the posts, you will find some people scratching their heads in disbelief and literally praying and hoping that the stock would go up! They seem to be completely lost as to why SPSN investment has gone sour and yet unwilling to hear some contrary thoughts and opinions with an open mind. They are shooting down the messenger, so to speak :-(

It sure appears as though most of the negatives are fully priced into the stock but I keep coming back to the following issues. The overall equities market sentiment is at or near record lows. Combine this with the constant negative spin put out by most of the major brokerages with respect to the semi industry in general and we may be seeing the perfect storm for companies like SPSN. Is there a dawn approaching or are we still waiting in the darkness?

Most of the bad news for semiconductor stocks seem to be priced in, IMHO FWIW, and there seems to be plenty of bargains out there in this sector but the state of the economy is still evolving and that seems to be the risk as to where the bottom is and how long it will take for the economy to get out of the mess it is in. For value oriented investors, this is definitely the time to start nibbling if they haven't done it already.

As for SPSN, I am not sure yet. Long term outlook is uncertain looking at their debt load and the lack of sufficient CFs but in the short term there may be an opportunity, depending on one's entry point, as the stock appears to be oversold (I could be completely wrong here.) I still have many questions that remain unanswered though.

Here are some of the issues, the thread seems to ignore (or at least not discuss publicly) in their analysis to figure out if SPSN does have a future-

1. What is the total capacity that serves the NOR industry today?
2. What kind of captive capacity (200mm vs. 300mm) does SPSN have at the present time and where it would be, say at the end of 2008 or 2009? This is the key to their cost reduction efforts.
3. Samsung is vowing to become #1 by 2009-10 time frame. They do have plenty of 200mm (now that massive decommissioning of NAND and DRAM at 200mm is happening) as well as 300mm capacity. Do they have a realistic chance and will they pursue it seriously?
4. How does "performance" of MirrorBit compare with FG NOR, now as well as when they move down the nodes? How does MirrorBit ORNAND/2, QuadBit compare with NAND MLC 2 b/c, 3 b/c? Does the performance deteriorate with density? SPSN supposedly has MB QB at 90nm where are the specs? Is anyone using it today?
5. SPSN had 2.27B in Assets at the end of 2007. Does one know how it is accounted for? Fabs JV1 and JV2 were sold to Fujitsu for merely 150MM, partly because of extremely mature nodes but what would be the valuation for JV3 + Fab 25? I have some ballpark estimates based on my work and I am afraid, it is not a whole lot. If I subtract Fair Values of SP1, JV3 and Fab 25 from 2.27B, it leaves a lot of intangibles unless the BV of JV3 and Fab 25 is stated much higher than its FV. How will intangibles change once SFUN merger is completed?
6. When one looks at SPSN's operating model, it is clear that they cannot have positive operating margins unless they have significant increase in Sales as well as GMs. It is not even clear at this point if they will even be able to recover their investments from SP1 unless the ASPs improve in the future.
7. Do SPSN investors know how much 32Mb, 64Mb and 128Mb NOR sells for today and how much pressure there is from alternative solutions at much lower cost?
8. Numonyx deal is still getting finalized but does one know what Fabs are included in the deal from both INTC and STM? How much of that is 200mm vs 300mm? The deal was originally expected to get financed with 1300MM in LTD, 250MM in RD and 150MM from SFP and leave about 800MM in cash when STM/INTC were paid off. It has already been revised down significantly with much lower debt and similar Cash from what I have seen. How does this impact SPSN?

I could go on and on with my questions, but these are the kind of questions one should try and seek answers to because the stock is trading close to liquidation. There are significant risks here whether one likes it or not and the question is how much of it is already reflected in the current stock price? Once you have a better handle on liquidation value, you know how to bet so that the downside is minimal!

-Pam