Chip, who criticizes (and why) Technoprobe
Equita has issued a warning for Technoprobe, an Italian semiconductor company, due to competition from the American FormFactor. He previously called the governance of the company “immature”. All the details
Last week, the Equita investment bank issued a warning relating to Technoprobe, an Italian company that manufactures semiconductors: its headquarters is in Cernusco Lombardone, in Lombardy, but it has eleven offices around the world in Europe, the United States and East Asia. It has 2300 employees in all, of which 1500 in Italy.
THE COMPETITION OF FORMFACTOR
The warning concerned FormFactor, a US competitor of Technoprobe, which released results above expectations for the second quarter of 2022. The estimates for the third quarter are however cautious due to the lower demand for smartphones and IT devices. FormFactor, however, should benefit from CHIPS-plus , the law approved by the United States Senate that allocates $ 52 billion for the expansion of domestic microchip production.
TECHNOPROBE BUSINESS AND SHARES
Specifically, Technoprobe produces probe cards (or probe cards), used to test the functioning of the chips. According to Equita, in 2023 the company will report revenues of 552 million euros, compared to 392 in 2021.
Technoprobe went public in 2022, writes Affari & Finanza . His shares were worth € 5.7 last February; last week they hit 8.4.
The capitalization of the company amounts to 4.2 billion euros, writes the Corriere della Sera .
THE EVALUATION OF EQUITA (IN APRIL)
In April, Equita also announced that the world market for probe cards "should grow in line with that of semiconductors", therefore at an average annual rate of 7 percent from 2021 to 2027. The high-end segment – the one in which it operates Technoprobe – should double by 2027.
The bank said it expects organic revenue growth of 16 percent for the company over the period 2021-2025, assuming that it retains its 33 percent share in the core market and enters the final testing market. As for 2022, he said he expected "pressure on the margins". Regarding the period 2021-2025, however, he estimated “no expansion […] considering the need to increase fixed costs to support new products, research & development and support functions and manage the inflation issue”.
REDUCED MARGINS AND "IMMATURE" GOVERNANCE
According to Equita, Technoprobe has "limited space" to improve its margins and an "immature corporate governance".
The chairman of the company's board of directors is Cristiano Alessandro Crippa. The executive vice president is Roberto Alessandro Crippa. The managing director is Stefano Felici.
The board also includes Giulio Sirtori (general manager of Confindustria Lecco and Sondrio) and Anna Chiara Svelto (former manager of Pirelli and UBI Banca and member of the board of directors of Enel).
Technoprobe founder Giuseppe Crippa, 87, is a former employee of the Italian-French semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/technoprobe-critiche-governance/ on Thu, 04 Aug 2022 12:32:54 +0000.