Stats Chippac

Stats Chippac: In what is seen in accounting terms by some investors as a potential red flag, Stats Chippac has announced that its CFO, Mr John Lau has resigned from his position to pursue other career opportunities. The company will announce in due course the replacement for the CFO. To re-cap, in its recent 4Q13 results, Stats raked in a 4Q13 net loss of US$6.1m versus a net profit of US$1.7m from a year ago. Revenue for the quarter fell 17.8% y/y to US$395m, as strength in the emerging market chipset space and new product ramps in the global handset space was offset by seasonal weakness in the computing and consumer markets. Excluding the benefit of an extra week last year, core revenue would have decreased 11.4% y/y. Going forward, management guides 1Q14 revenue to be impacted by seasonality and to decrease 8% to 14% q/q. The group projects capex in 1Q14 to be between US$105m and $125m, to supports the anticipated demand for advanced wafer level packaging services this year, as well as for the US$45m to $55m progressive construction of a new factory in Korea. At the current price, Stats trade at just 0.67x P/B.