Financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 reflect the impact of bankruptcy filing of Aehr Test Systems’ customer, Spansion. Due to the bankruptcy filing and to the current weak market for company’s products, the company recorded the following charges in the third quarter of fiscal 2009:
$13.7 million provision for bad debts;
$5.7 million provision for excess and obsolete inventory;
$4.9 million increase in the valuation allowance against company’s deferred tax assets;
$0.5 million charge associated to cancellation costs;
$0.3 million goodwill impairment charge;
$0.2 million severance charge.
Collectively these charges recorded in third quarter of fiscal 2009, total $25.3 million, or $3 per share.
‘We strongly believe that we are taking the appropriate actions that will enable Aehr Test to weather both the Spansion bankruptcy filing and the very weak market conditions,’ stated Rhea Posedel, chairman and chief executive officer of Aehr Test Systems. ‘We have already significantly reduced our headcount and initiated other expense reduction measures. We intend to take additional actions as necessary to maintain sufficient cash to manage through this economic downturn.
‘While the semiconductor capital equipment market remains very depressed, we are seeing interest in many of our new products, particularly our family of Advanced Burn-in and Test Systems (ABTS(TM)). Based on our sales pipeline, we believe additional ABTS customers will be added in the next three to six months.
‘We expect that the next six to nine months will be very challenging, as it appears that a recovery in the semiconductor equipment market will not occur until later in the year, at the earliest. However, we are optimistic that when capital spending trends improve, our continuing investment in new product development and our strong product portfolio will enable us to add new customers and expand our market share,’ added Posedel.
The net sales were $20.2 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, compared with $28.1 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2008. The net loss for the nine months of fiscal 2009 was $25.9 million, or $3.08 per share, compared with net income of $4.1 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
At February 28, 2009, cash and cash equivalents were $7.4 million. Aehr Test Systems closed the third quarter of fiscal 2009 with no outstanding debt and shareholders’ equity of $13.5 million at February 28, 2009.
