Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE:VSH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: And our next question comes from Matt Sheerin with Stifel.

Matt Sheerin: I have just a couple of near-term modeling questions. So you’re guiding gross margin down. It looks like that incremental margin is 50%, 55%. And you’re also modeling or guiding OpEx up a little bit. So just trying to figure out are we bottoming here in terms of margins look like your operating margin will be below 10% for the first time in several quarters. How should we think about as the cycle bottoms here, where margins may bottom? And are there any other cost-cutting initiatives in terms of OpEx or other costs that you may take out in order to keep margins at the higher levels.

Joel Smejkal: Are we at a bottom? It’s [indiscernible] are we at a bottom. We look at the discussions we’re having with our channel partners, our automotive customers. Each segment has kind of a different move to it. On the top line, when we look at revenue, we’re seeing the aerospace, defense moving up we’re seeing automotive flat to continuing to move up. So positive on the top side that we can see some of those positive markets offset other markets which are flat to sideways. The margins. The margins we are working diligently to make sure that we can establish what we say as a track record for Vishay; [indiscernible] company. We believe that the margins will continue [indiscernible] through. We work with cost cutting, we work on rightsizing factories, we look at our cost or spending on OpEx and decide if we need it in the current quarter, if we can push it out a quarter. So we’re quite diligent here. Lori, do you have any comments you’d like to make?

Lori Lipcaman: No, I think that’s pretty much covered it.

Peter Henrici: Sorry, if I may add. So if you look at the book-to-bill, we disclosed, we — the high incremental margin down is partially related to a negative product mix that in that the semiconductors, we assume semiconductors will be going down further in Q4 than the passives. So that drives the margins down and increases the incremental negative margin.

Matt Sheerin: Okay. And is that true for the MOSFET business as well? I know — I saw the book-to-bill was very low but I know you have a strong demand from auto customers. So the MOSFET business will be down again as well.

Joel Smejkal: I would say sideways, Matt. The automotive polls, the schedule agreements we see continue to represent the demand. We were in allocation with [indiscernible]. We’ve come off of allocation for Automos [ph] in the third quarter and now we’re engaging customers and distributors which we couldn’t currently support with our capacities. So we’re working to engage more customers to not say automotive products from MOSFETs are down but actually broaden our customer base and be able to support more. MOSFETs, as Peter said, is one of those higher-margin products but the inventory in the channel is high for semiconductors and we have opportunities through adding part numbers which would give us a greater play for the Automos [ph].

Operator: Our next question comes from Joshua Buchalter with TD Cowen.

Unidentified Analyst: It’s Sam [ph] again. I just wanted to follow up on the distribution comments from earlier. I know your visibility is never 2020 but can you give us an update on how much work there is to do in restocking the channel with new and old products to target levels if you have any, given that is the inventory is 24 weeks now versus, I think, 21 weeks last quarter?

Joel Smejkal: Yes. There’s quite a bit of work to do. We have 16 divisions in Vishay business units. And at this point, 4 of them had [indiscernible] with the distributors in the region. There’s meetings going on this week now in Europe for one of the divisions. So we are roughly 1/3, maybe 30% of what [indiscernible] here with the distributors. It’s a true reengagement. We are showing the distributors of new Vishay. So we’ve got quite a bit of work here yet to do which is going to span into the early part of 2024.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Joel Smejkal for any closing remarks.

Joel Smejkal: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. At Vishay, we remain committed to making the necessary investments in capacity, customer-facing resources and our innovation to make sure Vishay is ready to take full advantage of the next phase of market growth. For the megatrends, we talk about e-mobility, sustainability and connectivity; we’re moving forward with speed and conviction across the organization. I look forward to talking to you again in early February when we report our fourth quarter results. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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