The Q4 numbers are in for fledgling broad-line semiconductor maven Marvell Technology (Nasdaq: MRVL ) . Well, some of the numbers, at least. Okay, one number. Sales increased 27% over the previous year, to $622 million. Any questions? You'll just have to wait until the company's special committee finishes combing through years of stock option grants and correcting financial data to reflect any shenanigans they find.
Management currently doesn't think it will be able to file its 10-K report by the Mar. 28 deadline, though it did say that the review is nearing its end, and that we should expect some more information in the near future.
Marvell is far from the only company affected by these stock option troubles, and it isn't even the highest-profile miscreant. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) recently finished its internal review, for example, and market movers like UnitedHealth and Home Depot have already lost a few executives and board members over their own problems.
But back to what we do know about Marvell. The quarter included between $90 million and $100 million of revenues from the recently acquired XScale product line, a former Intel (Nasdaq: INTC ) division. Remove $90 million worth of purchased growth, and you get a more modest 8.8% organic revenue growth.
Marvell does have a few growth opportunities on its plate, though. The company is starting to look like a smaller clone of Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN ) or Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI ) , with products ranging from mixed signal DSPs and wireless networking platforms to application processors and power management components. CEO Sehat Sutardja says that he sees great growth prospects in post-processing digital images, or in other words, cleaning up the picture generated by signal converters from the likes of Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM ) . "This is the black magic of the art of producing better quality videos," he said.
Another bright spot is 802.11n wireless networking, as demand has started to catch up with the enthusiastically scaled production of these early-draft networking chips. That should be good news for other networking players like Intel, Broadcom, and Atheros (Nasdaq: ATHR ) .
It would have been nice to see estimated earnings, operating cash flow, or maybe just EBITDA numbers, but no such luck. Keep up the good work, gentlemen, and let us know when you can give us a clearer picture. Of your financials, not on my TV.
Further Foolishness:
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Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like, and Foolish disclosure is always worth a read.
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