Fabrinet Earnings 2020-06-26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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(Former name, former address and former fiscal year, if changed since last report)

 

 

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.     Yes  ☐    No    ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation (§229.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule of the Exchange Act.

 

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If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.    ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.    ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule of the Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

As of December 27, 2019, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, shares held by of the registrant had an aggregate market value of approximately $2.3 billion, based on the closing price for the registrant’s ordinary shares as reported on the New York Stock Exchange on such date.

As of August 7, 2020, the registrant had 36,744,258 ordinary shares, $0.01 par value, outstanding.

Portions of the registrant’s definitive proxy statement relating to its 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form where indicated. Such proxy statement will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this report relates.

 

 

 

 

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We provide advanced optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) of complex products such as optical communication components, modules and industrial lasers, automotive components, medical devices and sensors. We offer a broad range of advanced optical and electro-mechanical capabilities across the entire manufacturing process, including process design and engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, complex printed circuit board assembly, advanced packaging, integration, final assembly and testing. Although we focus primarily on production of a wide variety of high complexity products, which we refer to as we also have the capability to accommodate high-volume production. Based on our experience with and positive feedback from our customers, we believe we are a global leader in providing these services to the optical communications, industrial lasers and automotive markets.

Our customer base includes companies in complex industries that require advanced precision manufacturing capabilities such as optical communications, industrial lasers, automotive components and sensors. Our customers in these industries support a growing number of including automotive, biotechnology, communications, materials processing, medical devices, metrology and semiconductor processing. Our total revenues for the year ended June 26, 2020 (“fiscal year 2020”) increased by $57.5 million, or 3.6%, from $1.58 billion for the year ended June 28, 2019 (“fiscal year 2019”) to $1.64 billion for fiscal year 2020. Our revenues from lasers, sensors and other markets as a percentage of total revenues decreased from 25.2% in fiscal year 2019 to 24.0% in fiscal year 2020, while our revenues from optical communications products as a percentage of total revenues increased from 74.8% in fiscal year 2019 to 76.0% in fiscal year 2020.

In many cases, we are the sole outsourced manufacturing partner used by our customers for the products that we produce for them. The products that we manufacture for our OEM customers include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also design and fabricate application-specific crystals, lenses, prisms, mirrors, laser components and substrates (collectively referred to as “customized optics”) and other custom and standard borosilicate, clear

 

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fused quartz, and synthetic fused silica glass products (collectively referred to as “customized glass”). We incorporate our customized optics and glass into many of the products we manufacture for our OEM customers, and we also sell customized optics and glass in the merchant market.

We believe we offer differentiated manufacturing services through our optical and electro-mechanical process technologies and our strategic alignment with our customers. Our dedicated process and design engineers, who have a deep knowledge in materials sciences and physics, are able to tailor our service offerings to accommodate our customers’ complex engineering assignments. Our range of capabilities, from the design of customized optics and glass through process engineering and testing of finished assemblies, provides us with a knowledge base that we believe often leads to improvements in our customers’ product development cycles, manufacturing cycle times, quality and reliability, manufacturing yields and end product costs. We offer an efficient, technologically advanced and flexible manufacturing infrastructure designed to enable the scale production of products, as well as high-volume products. We specialize in complex prototype and new product introduction services, with specialized resources to meet customers’ quick-turn printed circuit board assembly (“PCBA”) and early stage manufacturing requirements. We have a dedicated engineering team to support the advanced optical packaging needs of our customers’ cutting edge products, which allows them to accelerate development and for such products. We often provide a manufacturing environment to safeguard our customers’ intellectual property by physically segregating certain key employees and manufacturing space from the resources we use for other customers. We also provide our customers with a customized software platform to monitor all aspects of the manufacturing process, enabling our customers to remotely access our databases to monitor yields, inventory positions, status and vendor quality data in real time. We believe there is no other manufacturing services provider with a similar breadth and depth of optical and electro-mechanical engineering and process technology capabilities that does not directly compete with its customers in their As a result, we believe we are more closely aligned and better able to develop long-term relationships with our customers than our competitors.

As of June 26, 2020, our facilities comprised approximately 2.1 million total square feet, including approximately 0.2 million square feet of office space and approximately 1.9 million square feet devoted to manufacturing and related activities, of which approximately 0.8 million square feet are clean room facilities. Of the aggregate square footage of our facilities, approximately 1.6 million square feet are located in Thailand and the remaining balance is located in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC” or “China”), the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel and the Cayman Islands. See Part I, Item 2. Properties of this Annual Report on Form

In the quarter ended March 27, 2020, the effects of the global pandemic impacted us in several ways and created various challenges. At the onset of the pandemic, our PRC subsidiary, which manufactures custom optics components for us and other customers at its facility in Fuzhou, China, experienced a prolonged temporary closure following its customary Chinese Lunar New Year holiday in January 2020. In accordance with the Chinese government’s official efforts to mitigate the spread of our PRC subsidiary, along with other businesses in various parts of the country, delayed resumption of operations following the holiday closures for approximately two weeks. Furthermore, because of the restrictions in place on travel in China during this period, many of our employees were unable to return from their holiday travel as planned, resulting in fewer than 90% of our employees being able to return to work at our PRC subsidiary before early March. Our other global manufacturing facilities also have been affected by various government restrictions put in place to slow the spread of In Thailand, the government declared a national state of emergency effective March 26, 2020 and required the closure of various businesses, in particular retail establishments, and passed measures restricting movement and activities in Thailand. While our operations in Thailand have not been suspended, we have implemented a number of safety protocols to allow our operations in our facilities there to continue in accordance with government regulations. With the exception of our facility in Santa Clara, California, which closed for approximately one week beginning in late March before reopening in early April as a previously classified “essential business,” our facilities in the United States of America (“U.S.”),

 

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including in New Jersey, and in the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) have remained open while adhering to the local government restrictions and orders implemented in March 2020, including orders and social distancing guidelines.

The health and well-being of our employees continues to be our top priority. Over the past several months, we have implemented significant precautionary measures throughout our worldwide operations to ensure our employees and their families remain safe, such as mandatory temperature detection at building entrances, rigorous and regular facility and equipment disinfection, and mandatory personal protective equipment protocols, including (1) the wearing of face masks throughout our factories at all times, (2) distributing our employees across shifts to better maintain safe personal distances, (3) isolating incoming parts and materials for a week or more prior to unpacking, or applying extreme heat to them to kill potential viruses, (4) directing our personnel to work remotely, and (5) restricting all visits to our campuses.

During the six months ended June 26, 2020, we also experienced a shift in the demand for our services, with some customers canceling, decreasing or delaying orders and other customers accelerating and increasing orders. However, the most significant effect of on our operations has been the disruption of our supply chain, including significant fluctuations in the availability of parts and materials necessary to manufacture our products for our customers. While we were able to mitigate some of these issues by quickly identifying and securing alternative sources, these mitigation efforts, combined with our employee safety initiatives, negatively impacted our gross margins due to the associated costs and expenses. For more information, see “Item 7, Management’s Discussion & Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

Many optical communications OEMs have reduced internal manufacturing capacity and transitioned to a and more efficient manufacturing base. By outsourcing production to third parties, OEMs are better able to concentrate their efforts and resources on what they believe are their core strengths, such as research and development, and sales and marketing. Additionally, outsourcing production often allows OEMs to reduce product costs, improve quality, access advanced process design and manufacturing technologies and achieve accelerated and production. The principal barrier to the trend towards outsourcing in the optics industry has been the shortage of third-party manufacturing partners with the necessary optical process capabilities and robust intellectual property protection.

Demand for optical communications components and modules is influenced by the level and rate of development of optical communications infrastructure and carrier and enterprise network expansion, as well as rapid expansion of data center infrastructures. Carrier demand for optical communications network equipment has increased as a direct result of higher network utilization and increased demand for bandwidth capacity. The increase in network traffic volumes has been driven by increasing demand for voice, data and video services delivered over wired and wireless Internet protocol, or IP, networks. The bandwidth demands for data center access have been largely driven by social media applications and cloud services, and continue to increase very rapidly.

The optical and electro-mechanical process technologies used in the optical communications market also have applications in other similarly complex that require advanced precision manufacturing capabilities, such as automotive, industrial lasers, medical devices, and sensors. These markets are substantially larger than the optical communications components and modules market. Growth in the industrial lasers, medical, and sensors markets is expected to be driven by demand for:

 

 

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Outsourcing of production by industrial laser and sensor OEMs has historically been limited. We believe industrial laser and sensor OEMs are increasingly recognizing the benefits of outsourcing that OEMs in other industries, such as optical communications, have been able to achieve.

We believe we have succeeded in providing differentiated services to the optical communications, industrial lasers, medical, and sensors industries due to our long-term focus on optical and electro-mechanical process technologies, strategic alignment with our customers and our commitment to total customer satisfaction. More specifically, our key competitive strengths include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The key elements of our growth strategy are to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We offer integrated precision optical, electro-mechanical, and electronic manufacturing services and customized optics and glass fabrication services for our OEM customers.

We continuously analyze our customers’ product designs for cost and manufacturability improvements. We perform detailed design for manufacturability studies and design of experiments to assist in optimizing a product’s design for the lowest cost possible without compromising the quality specifications of form, fit and function. In the case of a new product design, we may assist in assembling one or more prototype products using the same production line and the same engineering and manufacturing teams that would be used for product qualification and volume production. We often transfer production from a customer’s internal prototype or production lines to our own facilities, requiring a copy-exact: the setup of a production process identical to the one used by our customer to minimize the number of variables and expedite qualification.

We have a dedicated team of experienced engineers supporting our advanced optical packaging development capabilities. These highly qualified engineers work closely with our customers to understand the development requirements of their new products and assist them to build prototypes, as well as source materials, optimize manufacturing processes and develop schedules to bring these products to volume production. We maintain a real-time roadmap for the packaging requirements of our customers and the industry in general. Our advanced packaging team develops and maintains generic recipes that are readily available to be tailored and refined for the specific new applications of our customers, which helps to further accelerate prototype development and product delivery time.

Printed circuit board assembly involves attaching electronic components, such as integrated circuits, capacitors, receivers, transceivers and other components and modules to printed circuit boards. We employ a variety of mounting and assembly technologies, including SMT, PTH and ACT, and other connection processes that are focused on miniaturization and increasing the density of component placement on printed circuit boards. These technologies, which support the needs of our customers to provide greater functionality in smaller products, include chip-scale packaging, ball grid array, direct chip attach and high density interconnect. We perform functional and environmental testing of printed circuit board assemblies to verify all components are properly inserted, attached and the electrical circuits are complete, and that the board or assembly operates in accordance with its final design and manufacturing specifications.

 

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We are committed to providing NPI capabilities designed to ensure that our customers’ products get to market as quickly as possible. strong engineering services in process design, prototyping, design for manufacturability (“DFM”) and test at these locations gives customers a full suite of NPI services for quick-turn PCBA to to full system assembly. Stringent IP protection protocols are strictly enforced throughout the entire process, safeguarding our customers’ intellectual property. Our NPI sites are outfitted with production equipment that mirrors the equipment used in our manufacturing facilities, ensuring a fast, smooth transition to a production environment once the product is qualified.

Production line and environmental qualifications require a variety of process engineering and technical skills, and the use of specialized equipment. Many of the products that we produce for our customers require extensive environmental and reliability qualification involving, in some cases, a three to six months or longer duration prior to volume production. The qualification phase may include a customer’s certification of a production line or process and one or a series of qualification tests for mechanical integrity and environmental endurance as specified by an industry standards organization, such as Telcordia for telecommunication equipment. We have extensive expertise in the planning, executing, troubleshooting and ultimate success of these qualifications and testing environments, which provides our customers a higher likelihood of completing these qualifications in a timely fashion.

Once we have completed the qualification phase and stabilized production yields, we shift our focus to cost and quality optimization. This requires a close working relationship with our customer to optimize processes and identify alternative sources for materials to improve efficiency, yields and cost. Design and process improvements may include reducing the number of parts, simplifying the assembly process, eliminating add operations, using standard materials and optimizing manufacturing lines.

Our expertise in supply chain and materials management often allows us to further reduce costs and cycle times for our customers. Our procurement and materials management services include planning, purchasing, expediting, warehousing and financing materials from thousands of suppliers. We have created a proprietary set of automated manufacturing resource planning tools to manage our inventory. We have also implemented inventory management strategies with certain suppliers that enable us to use inventory on an basis and provide stocking programs.

We believe the integration of our manufacturing and test controls, quality systems, and software platforms contribute significantly to our ability to deliver high-quality products on a consistent basis and reduce the risk that we will be required to repair or replace defective products. Our manufacturing execution system (“MES”) is directly integrated with our test system and enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) database allowing us to respond to any process deviations in real time. We work with customers to develop product-specific test strategies. We also provide a variety of test management services, including material and process testing and reliability testing. In addition to providing yield, manufacturing data tracking and other information, our data tracking system also performs process route checking to ensure that the products follow correct process steps, and the test results meet all specified criteria. Our test capabilities include traditional PCBA testing, mechanical testing and optical testing, which includes parametric testing, such as insertion loss, return loss and extinction ratio, and functional testing (e.g., bit error ratio).

 

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We design and fabricate our own customized glass and crystal optics, which are core components of the higher level assemblies that we manufacture for our customers. Our fabrication facilities are located in Fuzhou, China and Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. Our customized glass and crystal optics products include the following:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Based on our experience with customers and our qualitative assessment of our capabilities, we believe we provide a broader array of process technologies to the optics industry than any other manufacturing services provider. We also continue to invest in customized optics and glass technology including in the areas of crystal growth, crystal and glass processing, optical coating, polishing and lapping, optical assemblies and precision glass drawing. We intend to continue to increase our process engineering capabilities and manufacturing technologies to extend our product portfolio and continue to gain market share in the optics industry. Our internally developed and licensed technologies include the following:

 

 

 

 

 

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We continuously invest in new and optimized processes to accommodate the next generation of optical devices, such as optical packaging, anti-reflective coating and complex printed circuit board technologies. We believe many of these manufacturing processes and technologies will be key to developing and commercializing the next generation of optical devices, which may include multi-function passive optics and photonic integrated circuits (which are devices that incorporate various optical components and modules into a packaged chip), receivers integrated with an optical amplifier, and active optical cabling. We also anticipate our customers will continue to desire our vertically integrated capabilities, designing customized optics and glass to be incorporated into optical components, modules and complete network or laser systems.

The optical communications market we serve is highly concentrated. Therefore, we expect a significant percentage of our total revenues will continue to come from a small number of customers. During fiscal years 2020 and 2019, we had three customers and one customer, respectively, that contributed 10% or more of our total revenues. During fiscal year 2020, Lumentum Operations LLC, Acacia Communications, Inc. and Infinera Corporation contributed 19%, 10% and 10%, respectively, of our total revenues. During fiscal year 2019, Lumentum Operations LLC contributed 20% of our total revenues.

The production of optical devices is characterized by a lengthy qualification process. In particular, the qualification and field testing of the products that we produce for our customers may take three to six months or

 

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longer to complete. Generally, we must qualify our production process with our customers, and the products that we manufacture must also meet the product quality requirements of our customers’ customers. While most of our customers do not purchase our services until they qualify the services and satisfactorily complete factory audits and vendor evaluations, we typically produce a test run of their products to demonstrate that the products we produce will meet their qualification standards in advance of receiving an order. As part of this process, our engineers work closely with the customer’s design and procurement teams. We believe that the rigorous product transfer and qualification processes, and the close relationships that we develop with our customers during those processes, results in greater visibility into product life cycles and longer-term customer engagements.

We are substantially dependent on orders we receive and fill on a short-term basis. Although we often receive a forecast from our customers, our customer contracts do not provide any assurance of future sales, and sales are typically made pursuant to individual purchase orders that have short lead times and are subject to revision or cancellation. Because of the possibility of changes in delivery or acceptance schedules, cancellations of orders, returns or price reductions, we do not believe that backlog is a reliable indicator of our future revenues.

Our manufacturing operations use a wide variety of optical, semiconductor, mechanical and electronic components, assemblies and raw materials. We generally purchase materials from our suppliers through standard purchase orders, as opposed to long-term supply agreements. We rely on sole-source suppliers for a number of critical materials. Some of these sole-source suppliers are small businesses, which presents risks to us based on their financial health and reliability, which we continually monitor. We have historically experienced supply shortages resulting from various causes, including reduced yields by our suppliers, which have prevented us from manufacturing products for our customers in a timely manner. While we continually undertake programs to strengthen our supply chain, we are experiencing, and expect for the foreseeable future to continue to experience, strain on our supply chain, as well as periodic supplier problems. We have incurred, and expect to continue to incur for the foreseeable future, costs to address these problems.

We have an extensive quality management system that focuses on continual process improvement and achieving high levels of customer satisfaction. We employ a variety of enhanced statistical engineering techniques and other tools to improve product and service quality. In addition, we generally offer a warranty ranging from one to five years on the products that we assemble. Generally, this warranty is limited to our workmanship and our liability is capped at the price of the product.

Our quality management systems help to ensure that the products we provide to our customers meet or exceed industry standards. We maintain the following certifications: ISO 9001 for Manufacturing Quality Management Systems; ISO 14001 for Environmental Management Systems; TL 9000 for Telecommunications Industry Quality Certification; IATF 16949 for Automotive Industry Quality Certification; ISO 13485 for Medical Devices Industry Quality Certification; AS 9100 for Aerospace Industry Quality Certification; NADCAP (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) for Quality Assurance throughout the Aerospace and Defense Industries; and OHSAS 18001 for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. We also maintain compliance with various additional standards imposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, with respect to the manufacture of medical devices.

Additionally, we are required to register with the FDA and other regulatory bodies and are subject to continual review and periodic inspection for compliance with various regulations, including testing, quality control and documentation procedures. We hold the following additional certifications: ANSI ESD S20.20 for

 

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facilities and manufacturing process control, in compliance with ESD standard; Transported Asset Protection Association, or TAPA, for Logistic Security Management System; and for Corporate Social Responsibility in Thailand. In the European Union, we are required to maintain certain ISO certifications in order to sell our precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services and we must undergo periodic inspections by regulatory bodies to obtain and maintain these certifications.

In addition to these standards, we are committed to the deployment of sustainable manufacturing, lean initiatives, and continuous improvement throughout our operations. The implementation of lean manufacturing initiatives helps improve efficiency and reduce waste in the manufacturing process in areas such as inventory on hand, set up times, and floor space and the number of people required for production, while Kaizen and Six Sigma ensures continuous improvement by reducing process variation.

Although the manufacturing services market is highly competitive, we believe that there are significant barriers to entry in our existing and target markets, including lengthy sales cycles, the need to demonstrate complex precision optical and electro-mechanical engineering and manufacturing capabilities to a prospective customer and the ability to protect a customer’s intellectual property.

Our overall competitive position depends upon a number of factors, including:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Competitors in the market for optical manufacturing services include Benchmark Electronics, Inc., Celestica Inc., Corporation, Jabil Circuit, Inc. and Venture Corporation Limited, as well as the internal manufacturing capabilities of our customers. Our customized optics and glass operations face competition from companies such as Browave Corporation, Fujian Castech Crystals, Inc., Photop Technologies, Inc. and Research Electro-Optic, Inc. Our UK competitors for printed circuit board assemblies include STI Limited and Axiom Manufacturing Services Limited.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our customers’ intellectual property. We license various technologies from our customers on a royalty-free, basis for the sole purpose of allowing us to manufacture products for those customers in accordance with their specifications. We have no rights to disclose, use, sublicense or sell this licensed technology for any other purpose. The duration of these licenses is limited to the duration of the underlying supply or manufacturing agreement. To meet the demands of certain customers, we created a manufacturing environment that physically separates the manufacturing sites from one another. Some customers, for example, demand anonymity at our facilities while other customers require additional security measures such as biometric devices to safeguard their segregated manufacturing areas.

 

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We regard our own manufacturing process technologies and customized optics and glass designs as proprietary intellectual property. We own any process engineering technology independently developed by our technical staff. As part of our manufacturing services, to the extent we utilize our own manufacturing process technologies in the manufacture of our customers’ products, we grant our customers a royalty-free license to these process engineering technologies for the purpose of allowing our customers to make their products. Any process engineering or other improvements that we develop in connection with the improvement or optimization of a process for the manufacturing of a customer’s products are immediately assigned to that customer. To protect our proprietary rights, we rely largely upon a combination of trade secrets, agreements and internal security systems. Historically, patents have not played a significant role in the protection of our proprietary rights. Nevertheless, we currently have a relatively small number of solely-owned and jointly-held PRC patents in various customized optic technologies with expiration dates between 2022 and 2034. We believe that both our evolving business practices and industry trends may result in the continued growth of our patent portfolio and its importance to us, particularly as we expand our business.

We are subject to a variety of international and U.S. laws and other legal requirements relating to the use, disposal, cleanup of and human exposure to hazardous materials. To date, such laws and regulations have not materially affected our business. We do not anticipate any material capital expenditures for environmental control facilities for the foreseeable future. While to date we are not aware of any material exposures, there can be no assurance that environmental matters will not arise in the future or that costs will not be incurred with respect to sites as to which no problem is currently known.

Our corporate social responsibility practices focus on creating better social, economic and environmental outcomes for all stakeholders in the global electronics supply chain. These outcomes include improved conditions for workers, increased efficiency and productivity for customers and suppliers, economic development, and a clean environment for our communities. We are committed to implementing programs that focus on driving continuous improvements in social, ethical, and environmental compliance throughout all of our global operating units in accordance with our Code of Business Conduct. As a guide to achieve this end, we look at principles, policies and standards as prescribed by the Responsible Business Alliance (“RBA”), an association of global electronics companies whose mission is to enable companies to improve the social and environmental conditions in the global supply chain. Fabrinet is a member of the RBA.

Fabrinet was incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands in August 1999 and commenced business operations in January 2000. We have seventeen direct and indirect subsidiaries, all of which are wholly-owned. As the parent company, we enter into contracts directly with our customers while some of our subsidiaries, namely Casix, Inc., FBN New Jersey Manufacturing, Inc., Fabrinet West, Inc., and Fabrinet UK Limited, each enter into sales contracts or purchase orders directly with their customers. We have inter-company agreements with Fabrinet Co., Ltd. and FBN New Jersey Manufacturing, Inc., whereby each provides manufacturing services to us. We also have inter-company agreements with Fabrinet USA, Inc. and Fabrinet Pte., Ltd. to provide us certain administrative and business development services.

As of June 26, 2020, we employed approximately 11,506 full-time employees worldwide, including approximately 11,193 employees in manufacturing operations and 313 employees in business development and general and administrative functions. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have not experienced any work stoppages, slowdowns, or strikes. We consider our relations with our employees to be positive.

 

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Our website is located at www.fabrinet.com. The information posted on our website is not incorporated into this Annual Report on Form Our Annual Report on Form Quarterly Reports on Form Current Reports on Form and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are available free of charge through the “Investors” section of our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The SEC maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy statements and other information regarding SEC registrants, including Fabrinet.

 

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The pandemic has adversely affected the global economy, disrupted global supply chains and created significant volatility in the financial markets. In addition, the pandemic has resulted in travel restrictions, business closures and the institution of quarantines and other restrictions on movement in many communities. For the six months ended June 26, 2020, we experienced a decrease in demand for some of our services and disruption in our supply chain because of the effects of which had a negative impact on our financial results. The extent of the impact of on our future business, financial condition and operating results will depend largely on future developments, including (i) the duration and magnitude of the pandemic; (ii) the measures taken by governmental authorities and private actors to limit the spread of (iii) our ability to continue providing products and services; and (iv) the effect of the pandemic on our customers, all of which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. While we have updated our risk factors to reflect risks of which we are aware, this situation is changing rapidly and additional impacts may arise that we are not aware of currently.

We have depended, and will continue to depend, upon a small number of customers for a significant percentage of our total revenues. During fiscal years 2020 and 2019, we had three customers and one customer, respectively, that contributed 10% or more of our total revenues. During fiscal year 2020, Lumentum Operations LLC, Acacia Communications, Inc. and Infinera Corporation contributed 19%, 10% and 10%, respectively, of our total revenues. During fiscal year 2019, Lumentum Operations LLC contributed 20% of our total revenues. Dependence on a small number of customers means that a reduction in orders from, a loss of, or other adverse actions by any one of these customers would reduce our revenues and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. For example, in the six months ended June 26, 2020, we experienced some order cancelations and delays with respect to certain products that we manufacture for our customers due to which adversely affected our revenue.

Further, our customer concentration increases the concentration of our accounts receivable and our exposure to payment default by any of our key customers. Many of our existing and potential customers have substantial debt burdens, have experienced financial distress or have static or declining revenues, all of which may be exacerbated by the sudden and continuing global economic downturn and uncertainty due to the effects of and subsequent adverse conditions in the credit markets, the impact of the U.S.-China trade dispute, and the impact of Brexit. Certain of our customers have gone out of business, declared bankruptcy, been acquired, or announced their withdrawal from segments of the optics market. We generate significant accounts payable and inventory for the services that we provide to our customers, which could expose us to substantial and potentially unrecoverable costs if we do not receive payment from our customers.

Our reliance on a small number of customers gives our customers substantial purchasing power and leverage in negotiating contracts with us. In addition, although we enter into master supply agreements with our

 

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customers, the level of business to be transacted under those agreements is not guaranteed. Instead, we are awarded business under those agreements on a basis. Some of our customers have at times significantly reduced or delayed the volume of manufacturing services that they order from us. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with our existing significant customers, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

Consolidation in the markets we serve has resulted in a reduction in the number of potential customers for our services. For example, Incorporated completed its acquisition of Finisar Corporation in September 2019, Cisco entered into an agreement in July 2019 to acquire Acacia Communications, and Lumentum Holdings Inc. completed its acquisition of Oclaro, Inc. in December 2018. In some cases, consolidation among our customers has led to a reduction in demand for our services as customers acquired the capacity to manufacture products

Consolidation among our customers and their customers will continue to adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results in several ways. Consolidation among our customers and their customers may result in a smaller number of large customers whose size and purchasing power give them increased leverage that may result in, among other things, decreases in our average selling prices. In addition to pricing pressures, this consolidation may also reduce overall demand for our manufacturing services if customers obtain new capacity to manufacture products or discontinue duplicate or competing product lines in order to streamline operations. If demand for our manufacturing services decreases, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

Revenues from optical communications products represented 76.0% and 74.8% of our total revenues for fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2019, respectively. Our future success as a provider of precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services for the optical communications market depends on the continued growth of the optics industry and, in particular, the continued expansion of global information networks, particularly those directly or indirectly dependent upon a fiber optic infrastructure. As part of that growth, we anticipate that demand for voice, video, and other data services delivered over high-speed connections (both wired and wireless) will continue to increase. Without network and bandwidth growth, the need for enhanced communications products would be jeopardized. Currently, demand for network services and for high-speed broadband access, in particular, is increasing but growth may be limited by several factors, including, among others: (1) relative strength or weakness of the global economy or certain countries or regions, (2) an uncertain regulatory environment, and (3) uncertainty regarding long-term sustainable business models as multiple industries, such as the cable, traditional telecommunications, wireless and satellite industries, offer competing content delivery solutions. The optical communications market also has experienced periods of overcapacity, some of which have occurred even during periods of relatively high network usage and bandwidth demands. If the factors described above were to slow, stop or reverse the expansion in the optical communications market, our business, financial condition and operating results would be negatively affected.

Our quarterly revenues, gross profit margins, and operating results have fluctuated significantly and may continue to fluctuate significantly in the future. For example, any of the risks described in this “Risk Factors”

 

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section and, in particular, the following factors, could cause our quarterly and annual revenues, gross profit margins, and operating results to fluctuate from period to period:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Therefore, we believe that comparisons of our operating results may not be useful in predicting our future operating results. You should not rely on our results for one quarter as any indication of our future performance. Quarterly variations in our operations could result in significant volatility in the market price of our ordinary shares.

We intend to continue diversifying across other markets within the optics industry, such as the semiconductor processing, biotechnology, metrology, and material processing markets, to reduce our dependence on the optical communications market and to grow our business. Currently, the optical communications market contributes the significant majority of our revenues. There can be no assurance that our efforts to further expand and diversify into other markets within the optics industry will prove successful or that these markets will continue to grow as fast as we expect. In the event that the opportunities presented by these markets prove to be less than anticipated, if we are less successful than expected in diversifying into these markets, or if our margins in these markets prove to be less than expected, our growth may slow or stall, and we may incur costs that are not offset by revenues in these markets, all of which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our current and prospective customers tend to evaluate our capabilities against the merits of their internal manufacturing as well as the capabilities of other third-party manufacturers. We believe the internal manufacturing capabilities of current and prospective customers are our primary competition. This competition is particularly strong when our customers have excess manufacturing capacity, as was the case when the markets that we serve experienced a significant downturn in 2008 and 2009 that resulted in underutilized capacity. Should our existing and potential customers have excess manufacturing capacity at their facilities, it could adversely affect our business. In addition, as a result of the 2011 flooding in Thailand, some of our customers began manufacturing products internally or using other third-party manufacturers that were not affected by the flooding. If our customers choose to manufacture products internally rather than to outsource production to us, or choose to outsource to a third-party manufacturer, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

 

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Competitors in the market for optical manufacturing services include Benchmark Electronics, Inc., Celestica Inc., Corporation, Jabil Circuit, Inc., and Venture Corporation Limited. Our customized optics and glass operations face competition from companies such as Browave Corporation, Fujian Castech Crystals, Inc., Photop Technologies, Inc., and Research Electro-Optic, Inc. Our UK competitors for printed circuit board assemblies include STI Limited and Axiom Manufacturing Services Limited. Other existing contract manufacturing companies, original design manufacturers or outsourced semiconductor assembly and test companies could also enter our target markets. In addition, we may face more competitors as we attempt to penetrate new markets.

Many of our customers and potential competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, larger customer bases and significantly greater resources than we have. These advantages may allow them to devote greater resources than we can to the development and promotion of service offerings that are similar or superior to our service offerings. These competitors may also engage in more extensive research and development, undertake more marketing campaigns, adopt more aggressive pricing policies or offer services that achieve greater market acceptance than ours. These competitors may also compete with us by making more attractive offers to our existing and potential employees, suppliers, and strategic partners. Further, consolidation in the optics industry could lead to larger and more geographically diverse competitors. New and increased competition could result in price reductions for our services, reduced gross profit margins or loss of market share. We may not be able to compete successfully against our current and future competitors, and the competitive pressures we face may harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

We do not typically obtain firm purchase orders or commitments from our customers that extend beyond 13 weeks. While we work closely with our customers to develop forecasts for periods of up to one year, these forecasts are not binding and may be unreliable. Customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities from forecasted volumes or delay production for a number of reasons beyond our control. Any material delay, cancellation or reduction of orders could cause our revenues to decline significantly and could cause us to hold excess materials. Many of our costs and operating expenses are fixed. As a result, a reduction in customer demand could decrease our gross profit and harm our business, financial condition and operating results. For example, in the six months ended June 26, 2020, we experienced some order cancelations and delays with respect to telecom products that we manufacture for our customers due to however, these cancelations and delays were partially offset by increased demand for datacom products.

In addition, we make significant decisions, including production schedules, material procurement commitments, personnel needs and other resource requirements, based on our estimate of our customers’ requirements. The short-term nature of our customers’ commitments and the possibility of rapid changes in demand for their products reduce our ability to accurately estimate the future requirements of our customers. Inability to forecast the level of customer orders with certainty makes it difficult to allocate resources to specific customers, order appropriate levels of materials and maximize the use of our manufacturing capacity. This could also lead to an inability to meet a spike in production demand, all of which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

We provide manufacturing services to companies, and rely on suppliers, that have in the past and may in the future experience financial difficulty, particularly in light of the sudden and continuing global economic downturn and uncertainty due to the effects of and subsequent adverse conditions in the credit markets that have affected access to capital and liquidity. As a result, we devote significant resources to monitor receivables and inventory balances with certain of our customers. If our customers experience financial

 

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difficulty, we could have difficulty recovering amounts owed to us from these customers, or demand for our services from these customers could decline. For example, in July 2014, one of our customers filed for bankruptcy protection under the Local Trade Court in France; although the bankruptcy of this customer did not have a significant effect on our consolidated financial statements, the same may not be the case if a significant customer were to file for bankruptcy protection in the future. If our suppliers experience financial difficulty, we could have trouble sourcing materials necessary to fulfill production requirements and meet scheduled shipments. Any such financial difficulty could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition by resulting in a reduction in our revenues, a charge for inventory write-offs, a provision for doubtful accounts, and larger working capital requirements due to increased days in inventory and days in accounts receivable.

Volatility in the functional and currencies of our entities and the U.S. dollar could seriously harm our business, financial condition, and operating results. The primary impact of currency exchange fluctuations is on our cash, receivables, and payables of our operating entities. We may experience significant unexpected losses from fluctuations in exchange rates. For example, in the three months ended March 29, 2019, we experienced a $3.1 million foreign exchange loss, which negatively affected our net income per share for the same period by $0.08.

Our customer contracts generally require that our customers pay us in U.S. dollars. However, the majority of our payroll and other operating expenses are paid in Thai baht. As a result of these arrangements, we have significant exposure to changes in the exchange rate between the Thai baht and the U.S. dollar, and our operating results are adversely impacted when the U.S. dollar depreciates relative to the Thai baht and other currencies. We have experienced such depreciation in the U.S. dollar as compared with the Thai baht, and our results have been adversely impacted by this fluctuation in exchange rates. As of June 26, 2020, the U.S. dollar had depreciated approximately 6.8% against the Thai baht since June 29, 2018. Further, while we attempt to hedge against certain exchange rate risks, we typically enter into hedging contracts with maturities of up to 12 months, leaving us exposed to longer term changes in exchange rates.

Also, we have significant exposure to changes in the exchange rate between the Chinese Renminbi (“RMB”) and pound sterling (“GBP”) and the U.S. dollar. The expenses of our subsidiaries located in the PRC and the United Kingdom are denominated in RMB and GBP, respectively. Currently, RMB are convertible in connection with trade- and service-related foreign exchange transactions, foreign debt service, and payment of dividends. The PRC government may at its discretion restrict access in the future to foreign currencies for current account transactions. If this occurs, our PRC subsidiary may not be able to pay us dividends in U.S. dollars without prior approval from the PRC State Administration of Foreign Exchange. In addition, conversion of RMB for most capital account items, including direct investments, is still subject to government approval in the PRC. This restriction may limit our ability to invest the earnings of our PRC subsidiary. As of June 26, 2020, the U.S. dollar had appreciated approximately 6.7% against the RMB since June 29, 2018. There remains significant international pressure on the PRC government to adopt a substantially more liberalized currency policy. GBP are convertible in connection with trade- and service-related foreign exchange transactions and foreign debt service. As of June 26, 2020, the U.S. dollar had appreciated approximately 5.5% against the GBP since June 29, 2018. Any appreciation in the value of the RMB and GBP against the U.S. dollar could negatively impact our operating results.

We rely on a single source or a limited number of suppliers for critical materials used in a significant number of the products we manufacture. We generally purchase these single or limited source materials through

 

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standard purchase orders and do not maintain long-term supply agreements with our suppliers. We generally use a rolling forecast based on anticipated product orders, customer forecasts, product order history, backlog, and warranty and service demand to determine our materials requirements. Lead times for the parts and components that we order vary significantly and depend on factors such as manufacturing cycle times, manufacturing yields, and the availability of raw materials used to produce the parts or components. Historically, we have experienced supply shortages resulting from various causes, including reduced yields by our suppliers, which prevented us from manufacturing products for our customers in a timely manner. More recently, for the six months ended June 26, 2020, we experienced significant fluctuations in the availability of certain materials due to which had an adverse impact on our revenue and costs. Our revenues, profitability and customer relations will be harmed by continued fluctuations in the availability of materials, a stoppage or delay of supply, a substitution of more expensive or less reliable parts, the receipt of defective parts or contaminated materials, an increase in the price of supplies, or an inability to obtain reductions in price from our suppliers in response to competitive pressures.

We continue to undertake programs to strengthen our supply chain. Nevertheless, we are experiencing, and expect for the foreseeable future to continue to experience, strain on our supply chain, and periodic supplier problems. We have incurred, and expect to continue to incur for the foreseeable future, costs to address these problems.

Managing our inventory is complex. We are generally required to procure material based upon the anticipated demand of our customers. The inaccuracy of these forecasts or estimates could result in excess supply or shortages of certain materials. Inventory that is not used or expected to be used as and when planned may become excess or obsolete. Generally, we are unable to use most of the materials purchased for one of our customers to manufacture products for any of our other customers. Additionally, we could experience reduced or delayed product shipments or incur additional inventory write-downs and cancellation charges or penalties, which would increase costs and could harm our business, financial condition and operating results. While our agreements with customers are structured to mitigate our risks related to excess or obsolete inventory, enforcement of these provisions may result in material expense, and delay in payment for inventory. If any of our significant customers becomes unable or unwilling to purchase inventory or does not agree to such contractual provisions in the future, our business, financial condition and operating results may be harmed.

The vast majority of our operations, including manufacturing and customer support, are located primarily in the Asia-Pacific region. The distances between Thailand, the PRC and our customers and suppliers globally, create a number of logistical and communications challenges for us, including managing operations across multiple time zones, directing the manufacture and delivery of products across significant distances, coordinating the procurement of raw materials and their delivery to multiple locations and coordinating the activities and decisions of our management team, the members of which are based in different countries.

 

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Our customers are located throughout the world, and our principal manufacturing facilities are located in Thailand. Total revenues from the of customers outside of North America accounted for 49.4%, 52.3% and 53.1% of our total revenues for fiscal year 2020, fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2018, respectively. We expect that total revenues from the of customers outside of North America will continue to account for a significant portion of our total revenues. Our customers also depend on international sales, which further exposes us to the risks associated with international operations. Conducting business outside the United States subjects us to a number of additional risks and challenges, including:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our failure to manage the risks and challenges associated with our international operations could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We are subject to governmental export and import controls in Thailand, the PRC, the United Kingdom and the United States that may limit our business opportunities. Various countries regulate the import of certain technologies and have enacted laws or taken actions that could limit (1) our ability to export or sell the products we manufacture and (2) our customers’ ability to export or sell products that we manufacture for them. The export of certain technologies from the United States, the United Kingdom and other nations to the PRC is barred by applicable export controls, and similar prohibitions could be extended to Thailand, thereby limiting our ability to manufacture certain products. Any change in export or import regulations or related legislation, shift in approach to the enforcement of existing regulations, or change in the countries, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could limit our ability to offer our manufacturing services to existing or potential customers, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

For example, in May 2019, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added Huawei and certain affiliates to the BIS Entity List. This action denied Huawei the ability to purchase products, software and technology that are subject to U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Although we do not sell directly to Huawei, some of our customers do sell to Huawei directly. To ensure compliance, some of our customers immediately suspended shipments to Huawei in order to begin assessments of the products they sold to Huawei (and its affiliates), to determine whether these products were subject to the restrictions resulting from the ban. This had an immediate impact on our customer orders in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019, which affected our revenue for that quarter. We expect this ban to continue to adversely affect orders from our customers for the foreseeable future.

 

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In August 2019, the U.S. Presidential Administration imposed tariffs on a wide range of products and goods manufactured in China that are directly or indirectly imported into the U.S. Although the U.S. Administration announced on January 15, 2020 the reduction of certain tariffs on Chinese imported goods and delayed the implementation of certain other related tariffs, we have no assurance that the U.S. Administration will not continue to increase or impose tariffs on imports from China or alter trade agreements and terms between China and the United States, which may include limiting trade with China. Trade restrictions, including tariffs, quotas, embargoes, safeguards and customs restrictions, could have the effect of increasing the cost of materials we use to manufacture certain products, which could result in lower margins. The tariffs could also result in disruptions to our supply chain, as suppliers struggle to fill orders from companies trying to purchase goods in bulk ahead of announced tariffs taking effect. The institution of trade tariffs both globally and between the U.S. and China specifically could also cause a decrease in the sales of our customers’ products to located in China, which could directly impact our revenues in the form of reduced orders. If existing tariffs are raised further or if new tariffs are imposed on additional categories of components used in our manufacturing activities, and if we are unable to pass the costs of such tariffs on to our customers, our operating results would be harmed.

We rely upon the capacity, availability and security of our information technology hardware and software infrastructure. For instance, we use a combination of standard and customized software platforms to manage, record, and report all aspects of our operations and, in many instances, enable our customers to remotely access certain areas of our databases to monitor yields, inventory positions, status and vendor quality data. We are constantly expanding and updating our information technology infrastructure in response to our changing needs. Any failure to manage, expand and update our information technology infrastructure or any failure in the operation of this infrastructure could harm our business.

Despite our implementation of security measures, our systems are vulnerable to damage caused by computer viruses, natural disasters, unauthorized access and other similar disruptions. Any system failure, accident or security breach could result in disruptions to our operations. To the extent that any disruption, cyber-attack or other security breach results in a loss or damage to our data or inappropriate disclosure of confidential information, our business could be harmed. In addition, we may be required to incur significant costs to protect against damage caused by these disruptions or security breaches in the future.

We may not be able to pursue many large customer orders or sustain our historical growth rates if we do not have sufficient manufacturing capacity to enable us to commit to provide customers with specified quantities of products. If our customers do not believe that we have sufficient manufacturing capacity, they may: (1) outsource all of their production to another source that they believe can fulfill all of their production requirements; (2) look to a second source for the manufacture of additional quantities of the products that we currently manufacture for them; (3) manufacture the products themselves; or (4) otherwise decide against using our services for their new products.

Most recently, we expanded our manufacturing capacity by building a new facility in Chonburi, Thailand, which was completed in March 2017. We may continue to devote significant resources to the expansion of our manufacturing capacity, and any such expansion will be expensive, will require management’s time and may

 

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disrupt our operations. In the event we are unsuccessful in our attempts to expand our manufacturing capacity, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

However, if we expand our manufacturing capacity and are unable to promptly utilize the additional space due to reduced demand for our services or an inability to win new projects, new customers or penetrate new markets, or if the optics industry does not grow as we expect, we may experience periods of excess capacity, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

The majority of our assets and manufacturing operations are located in Thailand. Therefore, political, social, business and economic conditions in Thailand have a significant effect on our business. In March 2020, Thailand was assessed as a medium political risk by MARSH Political Risk, a risk management, insurance and consulting firm. Any changes to tax regimes, laws, exchange controls or political action in Thailand may harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Thailand has a history of political unrest that includes the involvement of the military as an active participant in the ruling government. In recent years, political unrest in the country has sparked political demonstrations and, in some instances, violence. In March 2019, Thailand held its first general election since the Thai military took over the government in a coup in May 2014. In June 2019, General Prayut was elected as Prime Minister, and in July 2019, the new Prime Minister’s nominees for cabinet ministers were appointed. Any future political instability in the Kingdom of Thailand could prevent shipments from entering or leaving the country, disrupt our ability to manufacture products in Thailand, and force us to transfer our operations to more stable, and potentially more costly, regions, which would harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Further, the Thai government may raise the minimum wage standards for labor and could repeal certain promotional certificates that we have received or tax holidays for certain export and value added taxes that we enjoy, either preventing us from engaging in our current or anticipated activities or subjecting us to higher tax rates.

We anticipate that we will continue to invest in our customized optics manufacturing facilities located in Fuzhou, China. Because these operations are located in the PRC, they are subject to greater political, legal and economic risks than the geographies in which the facilities of many of our competitors and customers are located. In particular, the political and economic climate in the PRC (both at national and regional levels) is fluid and unpredictable. In March 2020, MARSH Political Risk assessed the PRC as a medium political risk. A large part of the PRC’s economy is still being operated under varying degrees of control by the PRC government. By imposing industrial policies and other economic measures, such as control of foreign exchange, taxation, import and export tariffs, environmental regulations, land use rights, intellectual property and restrictions on foreign participation in the domestic market of various industries, the PRC government exerts considerable direct and indirect influence on the development of the PRC economy. Many of the economic reforms carried out by the PRC government are unprecedented or experimental and are expected to change further. Any changes to the political, legal or economic climate in the PRC could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our PRC subsidiary is a “wholly foreign-owned enterprise” and is therefore subject to laws and regulations applicable to foreign investment in the PRC, in general, and laws and regulations applicable to wholly foreign-owned enterprises, in particular. The PRC has made significant progress in the promulgation of laws and regulations pertaining to economic matters such as corporate organization and governance, foreign investment,

 

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commerce, taxation and trade. However, the promulgation of new laws, changes in existing laws and abrogation of local regulations by national laws may have a negative impact on our business and prospects. In addition, these laws and regulations are relatively new, and published cases are limited in volume and Therefore, the interpretation and enforcement of these laws and regulations involve significant uncertainties. Laws may be changed with little or no prior notice, for political or other reasons. These uncertainties could limit the legal protections available to foreign investors. Furthermore, any litigation in the PRC may be protracted and result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management’s attention.

Natural disasters, such as the 2011 flooding in Thailand, where most of our manufacturing operations are located, could severely disrupt our manufacturing operations and increase our supply chain costs. These events, over which we have little or no control, could cause a decrease in demand for our services, make it difficult or impossible for us to manufacture and deliver products or for our suppliers to deliver components allowing us to manufacture those products, require large expenditures to repair or replace our facilities, or create delays and inefficiencies in our supply chain. For example, the 2011 flooding in Thailand forced us to temporarily shut down all of our manufacturing facilities in Thailand and cease production permanently at our Chokchai facility, which adversely affected our ability to meet our customers’ demands during fiscal year 2012. In some countries in which we mainly operate, including the PRC, the U.S. and Thailand, outbreaks of infectious diseases such as H1N1 influenza virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (“SARS”) or bird flu could disrupt our manufacturing operations, reduce demand for our customers’ products and increase our supply chain costs. For example, our facility in Fuzhou, China, which manufactures custom optics components, was not permitted to resume operations after the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday until February 10, 2020, due to the spread of in China, which negatively affected our revenues for the three months ended March 27, 2020. In addition, we and some of our suppliers and customers in China experienced labor shortages during the three months ended March 27, 2020, due to travel restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. As has continued to spread throughout the world, authorities in other countries in which we have manufacturing facilities, including Thailand, the U.K. and the U.S., have implemented numerous measures to contain the virus, including travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, orders, and business limitations and shutdowns. While we are unable to accurately predict the full impact that will have on our business, financial condition and operating results due to numerous uncertainties, including the duration and severity of the pandemic as well as related containment measures, our compliance with such measures has already impacted our operations and could continue to disrupt our business, as well as that of our customers, suppliers and other counterparties, for an indefinite period of time.

In addition, increased international political instability, evidenced by the threat or occurrence of terrorist attacks, enhanced national security measures, conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, strained international relations arising from these conflicts and the related decline in consumer confidence and economic weakness, may hinder our ability to do business. Any escalation in these events or similar future events may disrupt our operations and the operations of our customers and suppliers and may affect the availability of materials needed for our manufacturing services. Such events may also disrupt the transportation of materials to our manufacturing facilities and finished products to our customers. These events have had, and may continue to have, an adverse impact on the U.S. and world economy in general, and customer confidence and spending in particular, which in turn could adversely affect our total revenues and operating results. The impact of these events on the volatility of the U.S. and world financial markets also could increase the volatility of the market price of our ordinary shares and may limit the capital resources available to us, our customers and our suppliers.

Our current property and casualty insurance covers loss or damage to our property and third-party property over which we have custody and control, as well as losses associated with business interruption, subject to

 

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specified exclusions and limitations such as coinsurance, facilities location and other policy limitations and covenants. Even with insurance coverage, natural disasters or other catastrophic events, including acts of war, could cause us to suffer substantial losses in our operational capacity and could also lead to a loss of opportunity and to a potential adverse impact on our relationships with our existing customers resulting from our inability to produce products for them, for which we might not be compensated by existing insurance. This in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

The sudden and continuing global economic downturn and uncertainty due to the effects of and subsequent volatility and adverse conditions in the capital and credit markets have negatively affected levels of business and consumer spending. Concerns about the increasing possibility of a global depression and potential default of various national bonds and debt backed by individual countries, as well as the politics impacting these, could negatively impact the U.S. and global economies and adversely affect our financial results. In particular, the economic disruption caused by has led to reduced demand in some of our customers’ optical communications product portfolios and significant volatility in global stock markets and currency exchange rates. Uncertainty about worldwide economic conditions poses a risk as businesses may further reduce or postpone spending in response to reduced budgets, tight credit, negative financial news and declines in income or asset values, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results and increase the volatility of our share price. In addition, our ability to access capital markets may be restricted, which could have an impact on our ability to react to changing economic and business conditions and could also adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Due to the unprecedented and rapidly changing social and global economic impacts associated with we are unable to predict or estimate the ultimate impact on our business or business prospects. The ultimate significance of on our business will depend on, among other things: the extent and duration of the pandemic, the severity of the disease and the number of people infected with the virus; the effects on the global economy of the pandemic and of the measures taken by governmental authorities and other third parties restricting life and the length of time that such measures remain in place; and governmental programs implemented to assist businesses impacted by the pandemic. At this time, we cannot estimate the short- or long-term impacts of on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Manufacturing yields depend on a number of factors, including the following:

 

 

 

 

 

Lower volume production due to continually changing designs generally results in lower yields. Manufacturing yields and margins can also be lower if we receive or inadvertently use defective or contaminated materials from our suppliers. In addition, our customer contracts typically provide that we will supply products at a fixed price each quarter, which assumes specific production yields and quality metrics. If we do not meet the yield assumptions and quality metrics used in calculating the price of a product, we may not be able to recover the costs associated with our failure to do so. Consequently, our operating results and profitability may be harmed.

 

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We manufacture products to our customers’ specifications, and our manufacturing processes and facilities must comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. In addition, our customers’ products and the manufacturing processes that we use to produce them are often complex. As a result, products that we manufacture may at times contain manufacturing or design defects, and our manufacturing processes may be subject to errors or fail to be in compliance with applicable statutory or regulatory requirements. Additionally, not all defects are immediately detectible. The testing procedures of our customers are generally limited to the evaluation of the products that we manufacture under likely and foreseeable failure scenarios. For various reasons (including, among others, the occurrence of performance problems that are unforeseeable at the time of testing or that are detected only when products are fully deployed and operated under peak stress conditions), these products may fail to perform as expected after their initial acceptance by a customer.

We generally provide a warranty of between one to five years on the products that we manufacture for our customers. This warranty typically guarantees that products will conform to our customers’ specifications and be free from defects in workmanship. Defects in the products we manufacture, whether caused by a design, engineering, manufacturing or component failure or by deficiencies in our manufacturing processes and whether during or after the warranty period, could result in product or component failures, which may damage our business reputation, whether or not we are indemnified for such failures. We could also incur significant costs to repair or replace defective products under warranty, particularly when such failures occur in installed systems. In some instances, we may also be required to incur costs to repair or replace defective products outside of the warranty period in the event that a recurring defect is discovered in a certain percentage of a customer’s products delivered over an agreed upon period of time. We have experienced product or component failures in the past and remain exposed to such failures, as the products that we manufacture are widely deployed throughout the world in multiple environments and applications. Further, due to the difficulty in determining whether a given defect resulted from our customer’s design of the product or our manufacturing process, we may be exposed to product liability or product warranty claims arising from defects that are not our fault. In addition, if the number or type of defects exceeds certain percentage limitations contained in our contractual arrangements, we may be required to conduct extensive failure analysis, for production or cease production of the specified products.

Product liability claims may include liability for personal injury or property damage. Product warranty claims may include liability to pay for a recall, repair or replacement of a product or component. Although liability for these claims is generally assigned to our customers in our contracts, even where they have assumed liability, our customers may not, or may not have the resources to, satisfy claims for costs or liabilities arising from a defective product. Additionally, under one of our contracts, in the event the products we manufacture do not meet the testing requirements or otherwise fail, we may be required to pay penalties to our customer, including a fee during the time period that the customer or production line is not operational as a result of the failure of the products that we manufacture, all of which could harm our business, operating results and customer relations. If we engineer or manufacture a product that is found to cause any personal injury or property damage or is otherwise found to be defective, we could incur significant costs to resolve the claim. While we maintain insurance for certain product liability claims, we do not maintain insurance for any recalls and, therefore, would be required to pay any associated costs that are determined to be our responsibility. A successful product liability or product warranty claim in excess of our insurance coverage or any material claim for which insurance coverage is denied, limited, is not available or has not been obtained could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

 

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As a manufacturer of products for the optics industry, we are required to meet certain certification standards, including the following: ISO9001 for Manufacturing Quality Management Systems; ISO14001 for Environmental Management Systems; TL9000 for Telecommunications Industry Quality Certification; IATF16949 for Automotive Industry Quality Certification; ISO13485 for Medical Devices Industry Quality Certification; AS9100 for Aerospace Industry Quality Certification; NADCAP (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) for Quality Assurance throughout the Aerospace and Defense Industries; and OHSAS18001 for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. We also maintain compliance with various additional standards imposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) with respect to the manufacture of medical devices.

Additionally, we are required to register with the FDA and other regulatory bodies and are subject to continual review and periodic inspection for compliance with various regulations, including testing, quality control and documentation procedures. We hold the following additional certifications: ANSI ESD S20.20 for facilities and manufacturing process control, in compliance with ESD standard; Transported Asset Protection Association, or TAPA, for Logistic Security Management System; and for Corporate Social Responsibility in Thailand. In the European Union, we are required to maintain certain ISO certifications in order to sell our precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services and we must undergo periodic inspections by regulatory bodies to obtain and maintain these certifications. If any regulatory inspection reveals that we are not in compliance with applicable standards, regulators may take action against us, including issuing a warning letter, imposing fines on us, requiring a recall of the products we manufactured for our customers, or closing our manufacturing facilities. If any of these actions were to occur, it could harm our reputation as well as our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our future success depends, in part, upon our ability to attract additional skilled employees and retain our current key personnel. We have identified several areas where we intend to expand our hiring, including business development, finance, human resources, operations and supply chain management. We may not be able to hire and retain such personnel at compensation levels consistent with our existing compensation and salary structure. Our future also depends on the continued contributions of our executive management team and other key management and technical personnel, each of whom would be difficult to replace. Although we have key person life insurance policies on some of our executive officers, the loss of any of our executive officers or key personnel or the inability to continue to attract qualified personnel could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

The sale and manufacturing of products in certain states and countries may subject us to environmental laws and regulations. In addition, rules adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 impose diligence and disclosure requirements regarding the use of “conflict minerals” mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries in the products we manufacture for our customers. Compliance with these rules has resulted in additional cost and expense, including for due diligence to determine and verify the sources of any conflict minerals used in the products we manufacture, and may result in additional costs of remediation and other changes to processes or sources of supply as a consequence of such verification activities. These rules may also affect the sourcing and availability of minerals used in the products we manufacture, as there may be only a limited number of suppliers offering “conflict free” metals that can be used in the products we manufacture for our customers.

 

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Although we do not anticipate any material adverse effects based on the nature of our operations and these laws and regulations, we will need to ensure that we and, in some cases, our suppliers comply with applicable laws and regulations. If we fail to timely comply with such laws and regulations, our customers may cease doing business with us, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. In addition, if we were found to be in violation of these laws, we could be subject to governmental fines, liability to our customers and damage to our reputation, which would also have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We are subject to income and other taxes in Thailand, the PRC, the United Kingdom and the United States. Our effective income tax rate, provision for income taxes and future tax liability could be adversely affected by numerous factors, including the results of tax audits and examinations, income before taxes being lower than anticipated in countries with lower statutory tax rates and higher than anticipated in countries with higher statutory tax rates, changes in income tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, failure to meet obligations with respect to tax exemptions, and changes in tax laws and regulations. As of June 26, 2020, our U.S. federal and state tax returns remain open to examination for the tax years 2015 through 2018. In addition, tax returns that remain open to examination in Thailand, the PRC and the U.K. range from the tax years 2015 through 2019. The results of audits and examinations of previously filed tax returns and continuing assessments of our tax exposures may have an adverse effect on our provision for income taxes and tax liability.

We base our tax position upon the anticipated nature and conduct of our business and upon our understanding of the tax laws of the various countries in which we have assets or conduct activities. However, our tax position is subject to review and possible challenge by tax authorities and to possible changes in law, which may have retroactive effect. Fabrinet (the “Cayman Islands Parent”) is an exempted company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. We maintain manufacturing operations in Thailand, the PRC, the U.K. and the U.S. We cannot determine in advance the extent to which some jurisdictions may require us to pay taxes or make payments in lieu of taxes. Under the current laws of the Cayman Islands, we are not subject to tax in the Cayman Islands on income or capital gains until March 6, 2039.

Preferential tax treatment from the Thai government in the form of a corporate tax exemption on income generated from projects to manufacture certain products at our Chonburi campus is available to us through June 2026. Similar preferential tax treatment was available to us through June 2020 with respect to products manufactured at our Pinehurst campus. After June 2020, 50% of our income generated from products manufactured at our Pinehurst campus will be exempted from tax through June 2025. Such preferential tax treatment is contingent on various factors, including the export of our customers’ products out of Thailand and our agreement not to move our manufacturing facilities out of our current province in Thailand for at least 15 years from the date on which preferential tax treatment was granted. We will lose this favorable tax treatment in Thailand unless we comply with these restrictions, and as a result we may delay or forego certain strategic business decisions due to these tax considerations.

There is also a risk that Thailand or another jurisdiction in which we operate may treat the Cayman Islands Parent as having a permanent establishment in such jurisdiction and subject its income to tax. If we become subject to additional taxes in any jurisdiction or if any jurisdiction begins to treat the Cayman Islands Parent as having a permanent establishment, such tax treatment could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Certain of our subsidiaries provide products and services to, and may from time to time undertake certain significant transactions with, us and our other subsidiaries in different jurisdictions. For instance, we have intercompany agreements in place that provide for our California and Singapore subsidiaries to provide

 

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administrative services for the Cayman Islands Parent, and the Cayman Islands Parent has entered into manufacturing agreements with our Thai subsidiary. In general, related party transactions and, in particular, related party financing transactions, are subject to close review by tax authorities. Moreover, several jurisdictions in which we operate have tax laws with detailed transfer pricing rules that require all transactions with related parties to be priced using arm’s length pricing principles and require the existence of contemporaneous documentation to support such pricing. Tax authorities in various jurisdictions could challenge the validity of our related party transfer pricing policies. Such a challenge generally involves a complex area of taxation and a significant degree of judgment by management. If any tax authorities are successful in challenging our financing or transfer pricing policies, our income tax expense may be adversely affected and we could become subject to interest and penalty charges, which may harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

We anticipate that our current cash and cash equivalents, together with cash provided by operating activities and funds available through our working capital and credit facilities, will be sufficient to meet our current and anticipated needs for general corporate purposes for at least the next 12 months. However, we operate in a market that makes our prospects difficult to evaluate. It is possible that we may not generate sufficient cash flow from operations or otherwise have the capital resources to meet our future capital needs. If this occurs, we may need additional financing to execute on our current or future business strategies.

Furthermore, if we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible debt securities, the percentage ownership of our shareholders could be significantly diluted, and these newly-issued securities may have rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of existing shareholders. If adequate additional funds are not available or are not available on acceptable terms, if and when needed, our ability to fund our operations, take advantage of unanticipated opportunities, develop or enhance our manufacturing services, hire additional technical and other personnel, or otherwise respond to competitive pressures could be significantly limited.

LIBOR is the basic rate of interest used in lending between banks on the London interbank market and is widely used as a reference for setting the interest rates on loans globally. We generally use LIBOR as a reference rate to calculate interest rates under our credit facility agreement. In 2017, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates LIBOR, announced that it intends to phase out LIBOR by the end of 2021. It is unclear if LIBOR will cease to exist at that time or if new methods of calculating LIBOR will be established such that it continues to exist after 2021. The U.S. Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, a steering committee comprised of large U.S. financial institutions, is considering replacing U.S. dollar LIBOR with a new index, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”), calculated using short-term repurchase agreements backed by Treasury securities. Whether or not SOFR or another alternative reference rate attains market traction as a LIBOR replacement tool remains in question. If LIBOR ceases to exist, we will need to agree upon a replacement index with the bank under our credit facility agreement, and certain of the interest rates under such agreement may change. The new rates may not be as favorable to us as those in effect prior to any LIBOR In addition, the transition process may involve, among other things, increased volatility or illiquidity in markets for instruments that currently rely on LIBOR. The transition may also result in reductions in the value of certain instruments or the effectiveness of related transactions such as hedges, increased borrowing costs, uncertainty under applicable documentation, or difficult and costly consent processes. Any such effects of the transition away from LIBOR, as well as other unforeseen effects, may result in expenses, difficulties, complications or delays in connection with future financing efforts, which could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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Our services involve the creation and use of intellectual property rights, which subject us to the risk of intellectual property infringement claims from third parties and claims arising from the allocation of intellectual property rights among us and our customers.

Our customers may require that we indemnify them against the risk of intellectual property infringement arising out of our manufacturing processes. If any claims are brought against us or our customers for such infringement, whether or not these claims have merit, we could be required to expend significant resources in defense of such claims. In the event of an infringement claim, we may be required to spend a significant amount of time and money to develop alternatives or obtain licenses. We may not be successful in developing such alternatives or obtaining such licenses on reasonable terms or at all, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

We focus on manufacturing complex optical products for our customers. These products often contain our customers’ intellectual property, including trade secrets and Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our customers’ intellectual property. We may maintain separate and secure areas for customer proprietary manufacturing processes and materials and dedicate floor space, equipment, engineers and supply chain management to protect our customers’ proprietary drawings, materials and products. The steps we take to protect our customers’ intellectual property may not adequately prevent its disclosure or misappropriation. If we fail to protect our customers’ intellectual property, our customer relationships could be harmed and we may experience difficulty in establishing new customer relationships. In addition, our customers might pursue legal claims against us for any failure to protect their intellectual property, possibly resulting in harm to our reputation and our business, financial condition and operating results.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, as well as other rules implemented by the SEC and the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”), impose various requirements on public companies, including requiring changes in corporate governance practices. These and proposed corporate governance laws and regulations under consideration may further increase our compliance costs. If compliance with these various legal and regulatory requirements diverts our management’s attention from other business concerns, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually and disclosure controls and procedures quarterly. While we are able to assert in this Annual Report on Form that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of June 26, 2020, we cannot predict the outcome of our testing in future periods. If we are unable to assert in any future reporting periods that our internal control over financial reporting is effective (or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls), we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which would have an adverse effect on our share price.

Given the nature and complexity of our business and the fact that some members of our management team are located in Thailand while others are located in the U.S., control deficiencies may periodically occur. For example, following an internal investigation by the audit committee of our board of directors in September 2014 concerning various accounting issues, we identified certain significant deficiencies in our internal control

 

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over financial reporting, which have been remediated. While we have ongoing measures and procedures to prevent and remedy control deficiencies, if they occur there can be no assurance that we will be successful or that we will be able to prevent material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting in the future. Moreover, if we identify deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses in future periods, the market price of our ordinary shares could decline and we could be subject to potential delisting by the NYSE and review by the NYSE, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, which would require the expenditure by us of additional financial and management resources. As a result, our shareholders could lose confidence in our financial reporting, which would harm our business and the market price of our ordinary shares.

The preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP involves making estimates, judgments and assumptions that affect reported amounts of assets (including intangible assets), liabilities and related reserves, revenues, expenses and income. Estimates, judgments and assumptions are inherently subject to change in the future, and any such changes could result in corresponding changes to the amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses and income. Any such changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

The loan agreements for our long-term and short-term debt obligations contain financial ratio covenants that may limit management’s discretion with respect to certain business matters. These covenants require us to maintain a specified maximum total leverage ratio, minimum debt service coverage ratio (earnings before interest and depreciation and amortization plus cash on hand minus short-term debt), a minimum tangible net worth and a minimum quick ratio, which may restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness and limit our ability to use our cash. In the event of our default on these loans or a breach of a covenant, the lenders may immediately cancel the loan agreement, deem the full amount of the outstanding indebtedness immediately due and payable, charge us interest on a monthly basis on the full amount of the outstanding indebtedness and, if we cannot repay all of our outstanding obligations, sell the assets pledged as collateral for the loan in order to fulfill our obligation. We may also be held responsible for any damages and related expenses incurred by the lender as a result of any default. Any failure by us or our subsidiaries to comply with these agreements could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

If an activist investor takes an ownership position in our ordinary shares, responding to actions by such activist shareholder could be costly and time-consuming, disrupt our operations and divert the attention of management and our employees. Additionally, perceived uncertainties as to our future direction as a result of shareholder activism or changes to the composition of our board of directors may lead to the perception of a change in the direction of our business or other instability, which may be exploited by our competitors, cause concern to our current or potential customers, and make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified personnel. If customers choose to delay, defer or reduce transactions with us or do business with our competitors instead of us because of any such issues, then our business, financial condition and operating results would be adversely affected. In addition, our share price could experience periods of increased volatility as a result of shareholder activism.

 

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We use professional investment management firms to manage our excess cash and cash equivalents. Our short-term investments as of June 26, 2020 are primarily investments in a fixed income portfolio, including certificates of deposit, time deposits, corporate bonds and commercial papers, U.S. agency and U.S. Treasury securities, and sovereign and municipal securities. Our investment portfolio may become impaired by deterioration of the capital markets. We follow an established investment policy and set of guidelines to monitor and help mitigate our exposure to interest rate and credit risk. The policy sets forth credit quality standards and limits our exposure to any one issuer, as well as our maximum exposure to various asset classes. The policy also provides that we may not invest in short-term investments with a maturity in excess of three years.

We regularly review our investment portfolio to determine if any security is other-than-temporarily impaired, which would require us to record an impairment charge in the period any such determination is made. In making this judgment, we evaluate, among other things, the duration and extent to which the fair value of a security is less than its cost; the financial condition of the issuer and any changes thereto; and our intent to sell, or whether we will more likely than not be required to sell, the security before recovery of its amortized cost basis. Our assessment on whether a security is other-than-temporarily impaired could change in the future due to new developments or changes in assumptions related to any particular security.

Should financial market conditions worsen, investments in some financial instruments may pose risks arising from market liquidity and credit concerns. In addition, any deterioration of the capital markets could cause our other income and expense to vary from expectations. As of June 26, 2020, we did not record any impairment charges associated with our portfolio of short-term investments, and although we believe our current investment portfolio has little risk of material impairment, we cannot predict future market conditions or market liquidity, or credit availability, and can provide no assurance that our investment portfolio will remain materially unimpaired.

We, along with our suppliers and customers, rely on various energy sources in our manufacturing and transportation activities. Energy prices have been subject to increases and volatility caused by market fluctuations, supply and demand, currency fluctuation, production and transportation disruption, world events and government regulations. While we are currently experiencing lower energy prices, a significant increase is possible, which could increase our raw material and transportation costs. In addition, increased transportation costs of our suppliers and customers could be passed along to us. We may not be able to increase our prices enough to offset these increased costs, and any increase in our prices may reduce our future customer orders, which could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our revenues, expenses and results of operations have fluctuated in the past and are likely to do so in the future from quarter to quarter and year to year due to the risk factors described in this section and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form In addition to market and industry factors, the price and trading volume of our ordinary shares may fluctuate in response to a number of events and factors relating to us, our competitors, our customers and the markets we serve, many of which are beyond our control. Factors such as variations in our total revenues, earnings and cash flow, announcements of new investments or acquisitions, changes in our pricing practices or those of our competitors, commencement or outcome of litigation, sales of ordinary shares by us or our principal shareholders, fluctuations in market prices for our services and general market conditions could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to change substantially. Any of these factors may result in

 

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large and sudden changes in the volume and price at which our ordinary shares trade. Among other things, volatility and weakness in our share price could mean that investors may not be able to sell their shares at or above the prices they paid. Volatility and weakness could also impair our ability in the future to offer our ordinary shares or convertible securities as a source of additional capital and/or as consideration in the acquisition of other businesses.

Furthermore, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes or international currency fluctuations, may cause the market price of our ordinary shares to decline. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

The trading market for our ordinary shares depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If securities or industry analysts stop covering us, or if too few analysts cover us, the market price of our ordinary shares could be adversely impacted. If one or more of the analysts who covers us downgrades our ordinary shares or publishes misleading or unfavorable research about our business, our market price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our ordinary shares could decrease, which could cause the market price or trading volume of our ordinary shares to decline.

Based upon estimates of the value of our assets, which are based in part on the trading price of our ordinary shares, we do not expect to be a passive foreign investment company (“PFIC”) for U.S. federal income tax purposes for the taxable year 2020 or for the foreseeable future. However, despite our expectations, we cannot assure you that we will not be a PFIC for the taxable year 2020 or any future year because our PFIC status is determined at the end of each year and depends on the composition of our income and assets during such year. If we are a PFIC, our U.S. investors will be subject to increased tax liabilities under U.S. tax laws and regulations and to burdensome reporting requirements.

Our constitutional documents include provisions that could limit the ability of others to acquire control of us, modify our structure or cause us to engage in transactions, including, among other things, provisions that:

 

 

 

 

 

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These provisions could have the effect of depriving you of an opportunity to sell your ordinary shares at a premium over prevailing market prices by discouraging third parties from seeking to acquire control of us in a tender offer or similar transaction.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association (“MOA”), by the Companies Law (as amended) of the Cayman Islands and the common law of the Cayman Islands. The rights of our shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors under the laws of the Cayman Islands are not as clearly established under statutes or judicial precedent as in jurisdictions in the U.S. Therefore, you may have more difficulty in protecting your interests than would shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a jurisdiction in the U.S., due to the comparatively less developed nature of Cayman Islands law in this area.

The Companies Law permits mergers and consolidations between Cayman Islands companies and between Cayman Islands companies and Islands companies. Dissenting shareholders have the right to be paid the fair value of their shares (which, if not agreed between the parties, will be determined by the Cayman Islands court) if they follow the required procedures, subject to certain exceptions. Court approval is not required for a merger or consolidation which is effected in compliance with these statutory procedures.

In addition, there are statutory provisions that facilitate the reconstruction and amalgamation of companies, provided that the arrangement is approved by a majority in number of each class of shareholders and creditors with whom the arrangement is to be made, and who must in addition represent three-fourths in value of each such class of shareholders or creditors, as the case may be, that are present and voting either in person or by proxy at a meeting convened for that purpose. The convening of the meeting and subsequently the arrangement must be sanctioned by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands. A dissenting shareholder has the right to express to the court the view that the transaction ought not to be approved.

When a takeover offer is made and accepted by holders of 90.0% of the shares within four months, the offeror may, within a period, require the holders of the remaining shares to transfer such shares on the terms of the offer. An objection can be made to the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands but is unlikely to succeed unless there is evidence of fraud, bad faith or collusion.

If the arrangement and reconstruction is thus approved, the dissenting shareholder would have no rights comparable to appraisal rights, which would otherwise ordinarily be available to dissenting shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a jurisdiction in the U.S., providing rights to receive payment in cash for the judicially determined value of the shares. This may make it more difficult for you to assess the value of any consideration you may receive in a merger or consolidation or to require that the offeror give you additional consideration if you believe the consideration offered is insufficient.

Shareholders of Cayman Islands exempted companies have no general rights under Cayman Islands law to inspect corporate records and accounts or to obtain copies of lists of shareholders. Our directors have discretion under our MOA to determine whether or not, and under what conditions, our corporate records may be inspected by our shareholders, but are not obliged to make them available to our shareholders. This may make it more difficult for you to obtain the information needed to establish any facts necessary for a shareholder motion or to solicit proxies from other shareholders in connection with a proxy contest.

Subject to limited exceptions, under Cayman Islands law, a minority shareholder may not bring a derivative action against the board of directors.

 

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The Cayman Islands Parent is a Cayman Islands exempted company and substantially all of our assets are located outside of the U.S. Given our domicile and the location of our assets, it may be difficult to enforce in U.S. courts judgments obtained against us in U.S. courts based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. In addition, there is uncertainty as to whether the courts of the Cayman Islands, Thailand or the PRC would recognize or enforce judgments of U.S. courts against us predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the U.S. or any state. In particular, a judgment in a U.S. court would not be recognized and accepted by Thai courts without a or examination of the merits of the case. In addition, there is uncertainty as to whether such Cayman Islands, Thai or PRC courts would be competent to hear original actions brought in the Cayman Islands, Thailand or the PRC against us predicated upon the securities laws of the U.S. or any state.

 

Not applicable.

 

Our principal registered office is located at c/o Intertrust Corporate Services (Cayman) Limited, 190 Elgin Avenue, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. We have facilities located in Thailand, the PRC, the U.S., the U.K., Israel and the Cayman Islands that are used for manufacturing and/or general administration purposes. The following table presents the approximate square footage of our principal facilities as of June 26, 2020:

 

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From time to time, we may be involved in litigation relating to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. There currently are no material claims or actions pending or threatened against us.

 

Not applicable.

 

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Our ordinary shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FN”.

As of August 7, 2020, there were approximately 5 shareholders of record of our ordinary shares. Because many of our ordinary shares are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of shareholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of shareholders represented by these record holders.

We currently intend to retain any earnings for use in our business and do not currently intend to pay dividends on our ordinary shares. Dividends, if any, on our ordinary shares will be declared by and subject to the discretion of our board of directors. Even if our board of directors decides to distribute dividends, the form, frequency and amount of such dividends will depend upon our future operations and earnings, capital requirements and surplus, general financial conditions, contractual restrictions, applicable laws and regulations and other factors our board of directors may deem relevant.

None.

On August 18, 2017, we announced that our board of directors had approved a share repurchase program to permit us to repurchase up to $30.0 million worth of our issued and outstanding ordinary shares in the open market in accordance with applicable rules and regulations, at such time and such prices as management may decide. In February 2018 and May 2019, we announced that our board of directors approved increases of $30.0 million and $50.0 million, respectively, to the original share repurchase authorization, bringing the aggregate authorization to $110.0 million. The repurchased shares will be held as treasury stock. During the year ended June 26, 2020, 355,000 shares were repurchased under the program, at an average price per share of $58.37, for an aggregate purchase price of $20.7 million. As of June 26, 2020, we had a remaining authorization to purchase up to an additional $41.5 million worth of our ordinary shares.

The following table summarizes share repurchase activity for the three months ended June 26, 2020:

 

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