I think I have finished investing in my big gamble of the moment, SWKS, it representing a monumental 1.5% of the portfolio. Quite enough. Who cares what the company does? It won’t matter when the competition arrives. My big problem is deciding that future growth is completely unknown and so a low, completely arbitrary figure has to be entered in the calculations. Recent RS looks good but previously it was a rocky ride for those who held the faith in a purveyor of technical bits and pieces, which I did not; along with AMBA, it was a feature of the year. Apple component seems a positive for the moment but a general risk. Immense and unquantifiable risk from competition in the semi space. FCFY is spiffing but basically all the fundamentals are at risk with this one, as we saw before. Gosh, what am I doing? Well, the historical fundamentals and a low growth rate bring it galloping through the screens (apart from insider-ownership which looks too low for comfort). Some recent upgrades (yes, well, we know about them). And hey, it’s spring! There is the first blossom and a crispness in the air. Prune the roses, go racing (more gambles and maybe better ones) and have a flutter on a stock. So far I’m up 6% but what we want is a repeat of former glories!
My, how time flies. I see the great run of SWKS was '14 and '15, not last year at all.
Strelna - I got out at the last pop. Missed the last 10% but basically I don’t have confidence in current or future prospects. I’m keeping it on watch though as contributers here did a great job at a balanced and thorough review. If they get their mojo back I am prepare to re-invest. As I did with UBNT.
Ant
Here are a couple of recent articles from The Motley Fool public side.
The SpiderCloud contract could be a big deal for Skyworks as the former’s small-cell architecture is used by big telecom companies such as Verizon and Vodafone. More importantly, it won’t be surprising if small-cell power amplifiers gain widespread adoption since they will perform a mission-critical function in the growth of high-speed networks.
Small cells are low-power access nodes that have a limited coverage area of around a mile, allowing telecom operators to offload mobile data traffic. In simpler terms, they allow mobile operators to support a higher volume of mobile data traffic and extend the coverage range, thanks to additional spectrum capacity.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/18/why-small-cells-co…
The following article discusses skyworks efforts in China and Automotive as growth drivers.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/11/2-reasons-why-skyw…
I was fortunate to get most of my shares last spring between 60 and 75 so I am still holding and optimistic.
Darrell - long SWKS
I was fortunate to get most of my shares last spring between 60 and 75 so I am still holding and optimistic.
I am still holding and optimistic, as well. I also added shares several weeks ago.
I know Saul indicated awhile back that he sold his shares, but I am not really clear on what the bear perspective is.
I welcome any posts to enlighten me.
Hi az5speedy.
I am probably the last person in the world who should be writing a bear thesis for Skyworks since I’m so bullish. But I’ll give it a start. Others will probably pile on…
1. Customer concentration. Apple is a VERY large customer (~40%). Disruption in Apple’s business (which we’ve seen) or in Skyworks’ relationship with Apple (which we haven’t seen) could be quite problematic. Huawei and Samsung are also large customers. I think this kind of customer concentration comes with the turf when you sell to smartphone manufacturers, but it is a risk nonetheless. Part of Skyworks’ diversification strategy is its Internet of Things business.
2. The Semiconductor Industry is marked by cyclicality and declining average sales prices. Skyworks plays in a tough neighborhood. It specializes in integration, but it is not alone in what it does. It is not the biggest competitor nor is it the lowest-cost competitor. I think it aims to differentiate through high quality and custom solutions (although it also offers one-size-fits-all solutions at lower cost).
3. Skyworks’ Power Amplifier business is in secular decline. This has been the case for a while now, and PA only accounts for roughly one-sixth of Skyworks’ business. Still that decline represents a headwind to growth. Conversely, PA is Skyworks’ lowest-margin business, so any decline in that business provides a tailwind to margins.
4. Skyworks exhibits good organic growth, but acquisition has always been an important part of their growth strategy. Skyworks has shown that it is a disciplined acquirer, walking away from the PMC-Sierra deal after Microsemi bid the price above levels they were willing to pay. Disciplined or not, growth through acquisition is always a risky strategy, as any target company may have deeper-rooted problems than due diligence can reveal. Skyworks is sitting on a lot of cash right now, so the next acquisition might be a big one. Alternatively, with that much cash, might Skyworks make a tasty target for someone?
5. SWKS shares are up 70% from their 52-week low and may not represent a good deal. The current PE ratio is about 20-21x. Whether that is pricey or not probably depends on your estimate for future growth.
Yes, I’m bullish. But I like to think my eyes are wide open. Maybe someone less bullish can add more thoughts.
Thanks and best wishes,
TMFDatabaseBob (long: SWKS)
See my holdings here: http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDatabasebob/info.aspx
Peace on Earth
Oops… Forgot #6…
6. Management “Inexperience”. Both the Skyworks CEO and CFO have been in their roles at Skyworks for less than a year. I don’t blame myself for forgetting this aspect of the “bear” case, though. The former CEO (who held that role for more than a decade) is the current Chairman of the Board of Directors. The new CEO has been groomed for that role since mid-2014 at least, arguably since late-2012. The new CFO is an outside hire, but he has held the CFO role – at two prior employers – since 2009 (as per his LinkedIn profile). Probably the biggest shift under the new CEO has been the change in policy towards bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filter manufacture (the prior CEO wanted to build that technology in-house, whereas the new CEO doesn’t). The new CFO has made great strides in making Skyworks’ use of working capital more efficient; I like him already. I’m OK with the new team, but they properly should be listed as part of the bear case because they are both new in their roles at Skyworks.
Thanks and best wishes,
TMFDatabaseBob (long: SWKS)
See my holdings here: http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDatabasebob/info.aspx
Peace on Earth
Hi Bob
Good balanced content here. I remember us kicking around the bear points of SWKS before and around the time when Saul lost his patience with them.
With a complete failure in TMF search facilities (not unsurprising) as well as absence of any results in Google (more surprising), I cannot locate the posts.
However the gist of it was along the lines of…
Management kept talking up the progress meanwhile revenues went negative in YOY growth
They were getting out-designed by like for like competitors
They got designed out of the intel chip modem iPhone version at a stroke (so much for a moat)
plus all the points you made.
Ant
How are they set for 5G?
I should add that I’ve made a few grand on SWKS, partly from trading, partly from options trading, and partly on paper by still holding a couple of round lots.
I am probably the last person in the world who should be writing a bear thesis for Skyworks since I’m so bullish. But I’ll give it a start. Others will probably pile on…
Hi Bob, That was a wonderfully organized summary. I’ll try to add a few factors, that you touched around the edges.
Each year there are fewer and fewer people who don’t have smart phones yet. It’s becoming a saturated industry.
With each generation of smart phones it’s less urgent to run out and replace your old one. There will always be replacements but no longer a growth industry.
The nature of the industry is that Skyworks is not the master of its fate. Shopify, PayCom, Splunk, etc, can all constantly go out and find new customers (that will supply recurring revenue). Skyworks is a good company, with good products, but it has to wait for Apple and Samsung to place orders. They are a tag-on to someone else’s industry.
Saul
How are they set for 5G?
Hi Ed - if you go back through the threads, I asked exactly that question a year or so ago. Someone basically said and I paraphrase from memory - “I can’t remember the source and I wish I could but as I understand it they are all prepared and set for 5G”. Having said that the mgmt were banging on about how their TTM was growing well when in actual fact their quarters had gone negative for the year so I’m not sure how much I can trust in SWKS. I think 5G will be potentially be very disruptive vs 3G>>4G. Also not sure how Qualcomm and the chip industry built around LTE are likely to do.
I wish I understood that better as it affects my CEVA and Audiocodes holdings even if I have moved on from SWKS.
Annoyingly - the one player likely to continue to win which is not an investment option any longer is ARM, unless you want to invest in SoftBank which I haven’t ruled out.
Ant
“The nature of the industry is that Skyworks is not the master of its fate. Shopify, PayCom, Splunk, etc, can all constantly go out and find new customers (that will supply recurring revenue). Skyworks is a good company, with good products, but it has to wait for Apple and Samsung to place orders. They are a tag-on to someone else’s industry.”
Saul,
Couldn’t help but wonder about TWLO, HDP and TLND in this same way. As excited as I am about the potential for these three, any potential concerns or lessons learned from Skyworks you think could apply here?
sjo
Thanks for your kind words, all.
I want to address one point in Saul’s commentary (actually, I’m making one point, but it touches on all three of his).
Skyworks is still primarily a smartphone supplier, but not entirely a smartphone supplier. The PA business is roughly 15% of the total, the smartphone business is about 60%, and broad markets (basically Internet of Things (IoT), but it’s a bit broader than that) is 25%. I don’t have a great handle on the PA business since it is not important to Skyworks’ future. I’d suspect that some of the power amplifier components go into smartphones, but not all, so let’s say that Skyworks is two-thirds a smartphone company. I would argue that outside of smartphones – especially in broad markets – that Skyworks is very much a master of its own destiny. Its revenue base is diversified and growing. Revenue growth in broad markets has been good: usually double-digit but sometimes not (always positive as long as I’ve been watching, and over 20% in the most-recent quarter). Growth is their smartphone business has been – as Saul rightly implies – more cyclical (including negative revenue growth in the past three quarters).
In 2011, Power Amplifiers was 60% is Skyworks’ revenues. The smartphone business outgrew PA and exceeded it in a 2014-2015 time frame. The broad markets business is outgrowing smartphones of late, although if the iPhone 8 series is popular, smartphone growth will surge ahead for a while. So I’m not inclined to guess when Skyworks will evolve into a primarily IoT company. But I think that’s the direction we’ll see over the next several years, although it won’t occur in a straight line, and an acquisition could radically change the trajectory.
Saul’s point about smartphone saturation – I think – assumes a U.S. (or at least a first-world) market. Based on my study of a cell tower REIT with international exposure, growth rates are still pretty good in India and Africa. I think there’s still growth to be found in China as well.
Regarding Ed’s question about 5G… Everyone claims they’re well set for 5G. I don’t want to say they’re all lying, but the truth is that the 5G standard is still evolving and not yet set in stone. I think there’s enough agreement out there about the standard’s evolution that companies can make reasonable assumptions about the directions they should take to move towards 5G. But because there’s no clear finish line, I’d argue that everyone’s mostly guessing at this point. I have no reason to believe that Skyworks is ahead or behind anyone else. That said, Skyworks will likely have much more dollar content in each 5G integrated solution they sell when compared to 4G and 3G. They’ve basically said so, and the 3G-to-4G transition experience makes it seem logical and likely.
I KNEW I wouldn’t be able to stay on the bear side for too long!
Thanks and best wishes,
TMFDatabaseBob (long: SWKS)
See my holdings here: http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDatabasebob/info.aspx
Peace on Earth
The overall sense I’m getting is that if you want to invest in the relatively risky chip business, Skyworks is one of the better investments.
I just looked at it at vuru.co, a free screener that focuses on cash flow. For some reason, the 2016 cash flow was tremendously higher than any other year ($900 million vs. $500+ million in recent past years, and the low hundreds of millions in previous years). Does anyone know something about this? Is it a fluke, or a solid omen?
Hi again EdGrey.
I don’t know enough about vuru to say one way or the other what data they’re using. Are they using calendar '16? Fiscal '16? Cash Flow from Operations? Free Cash Flow? Are they making adjustments for one-time events?
I mentioned in a previous post that the new CFO did wonders for cash flow from operations through astute working capital management. Those gains occurred in 4Q16 (ended September) and 1Q17 (ended December). While further benefits may accrue, the largest part of those gains have been achieved, and we won’t see that kind of gain going forward.
As far as free cash flow goes, management knew that FY 2016 was going to be difficult (due to issues at Apple) and they scaled back capital expenditures a lot. I think we can/should/hope to expect greater CapEx spending in 2017, but minimal CapEx helps increase reported free cash flow.
In FY15 (but CY16), Skyworks received a payment of $88 million from PMC-Sierra after PMC-Sierra chose Microsemi’s competing acquisition bid. I don’t know whether vuru included that one or not, but it is clearly one-time in nature.
The sum of my above comments would lead one to believe that 2016 was probably an outlier as far as cash generation goes for Skyworks. While that is true to some degree, I would say that Skyworks is great at generating cash, and it wouldn’t surprise me if 2016 cash flow totals are eclipsed before too long.
Thanks and best wishes,
TMFDatabaseBob (long: SWKS)
See my holdings here: http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDatabasebob/info.aspx
Peace on Earth
For comparison, Yahoo Finance has two cash flow figures on their Statistics page, which are for TTM:
Operating Cash Flow $1.25B
Levered Free Cash Flow $843.59M
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SWKS/key-statistics?p=SWKS
The levered free cash flow figure is very similar to Vuru’s “free cash flow” for 2016. Skyworks’s fiscal year seems to match the calendar year.
Vuru’s page is here (click on “Show Free Cash Flow numbers”):
http://www.vuru.co/analysis/SWKS/valuation
Annoyingly - the one player likely to continue to win which is not an investment option any longer is ARM, unless you want to invest in SoftBank which I haven’t ruled out.
Ant
Anybody understand the difference between the two tickers on the OTC market? SFTBF vs SFTBY?
As best as I can understand: STFBF is the actual Company stock and SFTBY is a ADR that trades are roughly 1/2 the value of SFTBF. Not sure the advantage of one or the other, maybe foreign tax withholding on any dividend of STFBF and not on SFTBY? Better volume on SFTBY.
A new investment for them:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wework-gets-300-million-inv…
Among some of their unconventional investments, maybe the CEO loves baseball?
Further, the company generates, supply, and sells electricity from renewable energy sources; operates professional baseball team, as well as manages and maintains baseball stadium and other sports facilities;
I was trying to figure that out Jon and I never could so I track both. I think SFTBY is the one you’re supposed to consider the real deal.
Ant