Three months ago, Tower Semiconductor (Nasdaq: TSEM) crashed hard after a disappointing earnings report. Encouraged by the Israeli chip foundry's market position but nervous about its skimpy cash balance, I said that Tower looks like a long-term winner unless the company gets hit by another cash-burning market slowdown first. Win big or lose big.
Another quarter is in the books, and not much has changed. Tower saw 34% year-over-year sales growth to $135 million and non-GAAP earnings jumped 75% to $0.14 per share. Thanks to a focus on manufacturing the type of analog chips you'll find in smartphones and tablets, Tower is clearly growing much faster than industry giants Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) and United Microelectronics (NYSE: UMC), both in terms of sales and EBITDA.
The company is working hard to restructure that shaky balance sheet, but mostly in the form of debt refinancing. It looks great to have $117 million more in cash on hand compared to the year-ago quarter along with $69 million lower long-term debt balances, but don't forget about $115 million in new short-term debt. That cash account isn't as terrific as it might seem.
Tower's stock hasn't really moved anywhere after that third-quarter tumble, and as we've seen, the business is not very different today. However, another three months of water has gone under the bridge, and Tower is still doing OK.
So the question remains: Is Tower a value-priced and vendor-neutral way to play the analog chip wars among major customers RF Micro Devices (Nasdaq: RFMD), Skyworks Solutions (Nasdaq: SWKS), and Cypress Semiconductor (Nasdaq: CY) -- or is it a risky house of cards ready to topple in a light breeze?
I'm going with the deep-value proposition, given that analog chip demand should remain strong long enough to let Tower rebuild its balance sheet for real. So here's a thumbs-up CAPS vote for the stock, and you can follow my All-Star lead in just a couple of clicks.
