AMD’s Spansion Prepares to Go Public

by Anton Shilov
11/04/2005 | 09:05 PM

Spansion, a flash memory subsidiary of Advanced Micro Devices and Fujitsu, is set to go public sometime soon, as the company has made an appropriate filing with security and exchange commission (SEC). A share of the company will cost between $16 and $18 and currently approximately 33% of shares are expected to be offered to public.

“We are selling 35 294 118 shares of Class A common stock. We have granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 5 294 118 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments,” the company said in a statement with SEC.

AMD will own 42 352 940 shares of the Class A common stock, or 40%, whereas Fujitsu will own 26.7% of the common stock. As a result, AMD will have right to elect two directors into the board, while Fujitsu will elect one. It is expected that the offered shares will bring about $560 million, which will cover the losses Spansion made to AMD in the recent years.

According to market research firm iSuppli, in 2004 Spansion was the largest supplier of NOR Flash memory, with a 25.9% market share, which made the company as one of the largest suppliers for the overall Flash memory market, with a 15.1% market share, based on end sales of the products by AMD and Fujitsu Limited. In the first six months of 2005, based on iSuppli quarterly data, Spansion was the second largest supplier of NOR Flash memory, with a 24.9% market share, which again made the manufacturer one of the largest suppliers for the overall Flash memory market, with an 11.5% market share, based on end customer sales.

For fiscal 2004 and the first nine months of fiscal 2005, Spansion’s net sales were $2.3 billion and $1.4 billion, while net losses for these periods were $20 million and $257 million respectively, the company indicated.

Spansion’s Flash memory is incorporated into a broad range of electronic products, including mobile phones, consumer electronics, automotive electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment and PC peripherals.

Spansion operates four Flash memory wafer fabrication facilities, or fabs, four assembly and test sites and a development fab, known as our Submicron Development Center, or SDC. Spansion is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with Japanese headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, and as of October 23, 2005, the company employed approximately 8200 people worldwide.