AMD CEO Liang Jianhou during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show will run until June 7.
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Super Micro Shares plunged 22% on Wednesday to their lowest level since May last year after the troubled server maker issued shares. Unaudited financials disappoint It failed to provide specific plans to retain its Nasdaq listing.
The stock fell to $21.55 by early afternoon and is now down 82% from its March high. The sell-off has wiped out about $57 billion in market value.
Super Micro had its worst week on record for markets last week after its auditor Ernst & Young resigned, the second accounting firm to do so in two years. The company faces accusation The allegation, from an accounting irregularities campaigner, said the company violated export controls by shipping sensitive chips to sanctioned countries and companies.
Super Micro has not submitted audited financial data since May and risks being delisted from Nasdaq if it does not report its latest fiscal year results to the SEC by mid-November. The company said late Tuesday,Report preliminary results For the fiscal first quarter, it doesn’t know when it will file its annual financial report.
The company said on a conference call with analysts that it would not discuss any issues related to Ernst & Young’s decision to resign, nor would it discuss corporate governance issues. Supermicro is actively hiring new auditors, CEO Tony Leung said.
Mizuho analysts suspended coverage of the stock on Wednesday “due to the lack of complete detailed financial and audited statements.” Wedbush analysts, who have the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock, said the report left “more questions than answers.”
“Management appears entirely focused on finding an auditor and resolving its overdue filing issues,” Wedbush analysts wrote. “However, we don’t know how big the obstacles are to achieving that goal.”
Liang said on the call that the company was “working urgently to update our financial reports again.”
Super Micro said its net sales were between $5.9 billion and $6 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30. That was below analysts’ expectations of $6.45 billion, but still up 181% year over year. The company’s business has been booming lately as it ships servers packed with NVIDIA Artificial Intelligence Processor.
NVIDIA Founder, President and CEO Jensen Huang talks about the future of artificial intelligence and its impact on energy consumption and production at the Bipartisan Policy Center on September 27, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
AMD shares soared 246% last year after rising 87% in 2023. The stock peaked at $118.81 in March, shortly after being added to the S&P 500 Index.
Liang said there has been strong demand for the latest Nvidia GPUs, called Blackwell, which have started shipping in recent weeks.
When analysts asked when Blackwell’s revenue would show up in AMD’s financial statements, Liang said “we’re asking about Nvidia every day,” adding that the two companies would continue to work closely together.
“Our production capacity is ready, but the new chips are not enough,” Liang said.
Analysts asked if the company’s plans to build Blackwell-based servers had changed, which could indicate that other server makers might get additional Nvidia GPU capacity or allocations at Super Micro’s expense.
“To clarify one of the previous comments about Nvidia, we have the deepest relationship with Nvidia,” Chief Financial Officer David Weigand said. “We have multiple state-of-the-art projects underway right now and we’ve had conversations with Nvidia, They have confirmed that they have not made any changes to allocations and we maintain a strong relationship with them and do not expect this to change.”
Super Micro’s forecast for the December quarter was also lower than expected. The company said revenue would be between $5.5 billion and $6.1 billion, below analysts’ average estimate of $6.86 billion, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share will be 56 cents to 65 cents. Analysts expected earnings of 83 cents per share.
Super Micro said its board of directors has commissioned a special committee to investigate Ernst & Young’s concerns. The company said that during its three-month investigation, the committee found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct” by management.
“The committee is recommending that the company take a series of remedial actions to strengthen its internal governance and oversight functions, and the committee expects to submit a full report on the work completed this week or next,” Supermicro said, adding that it intends to take all Measures to maintain its listing status on Nasdaq.
watch: AMD shares fall on earnings
