同样的策略，为何博通壮大，科胜讯破产？

自1990年代晚期起，博通(Broadcom)与科胜讯(Conexant Systems)在类似的市场都采取积极的收购策略，这两家公司都锁定发展蓬勃的宽频网络市场，但最后的结果却大不相同。 今日的博通年营收规模达到80.1亿美元，是仅次于高通(Qualcomm)的全球第二大无晶圆厂芯片设计业者；但在科胜讯这厢，该公司营收由2000年的 21亿美元缩水至2012年的13.5亿美元，并在美国时间3月1日向德拉瓦州辖区法院(Court for the District of Delaware)声请美国破产法第十一章(Chapter 11)的破产保护。 根据科胜讯的组织重整计划，该公司唯一担保 贷款方QP SFM Capital Holdings将提供1,500万美元的DIP (debtor-in-possession)融资。此外QP SFM Capital Holdings将以1.95亿美元的可担保债(secured debt)交换组织重整中的科胜讯股权，此举将消灭科胜讯所有未偿还的担保债。 “我们已经背负庞大债务好一段时间；”科胜讯 总裁暨CEO Sailesh Chittipeddi接受EETimes美国版访问时特别提到了该公司1999年时的并购狂热──从1999年8月到2000年7月，科胜讯在短短十一 个月的时间内收购了7家公司，但科胜讯手上的积蓄不到20亿美元：“那是当时我们需要尽快解决的问题。” 科胜讯的例子是典型的恶性循环，该公司收购了一大堆债务以产生营运资本──为了那些收购来的公司以及自己原本的业务，同时还要处理手上现有的债务。以债养债的负担终于把科胜讯压得透不过气；更惨的是，因为被债务追着跑：“我们的那些大客户们开始质疑我们公司的能力，并逐渐疏远我们。”Chittipeddi 表示。 2012年，科胜讯的唯一打印机SoC客户柯达(Eastman Kodak)声请破产，又让科胜讯的命运雪上加霜。 但Chittipeddi指出，科胜讯比较幸运的是只需要面对单一贷款方QP SFM Capital Holding来进行组织重整的协商，不必面对多个债主；而且这个单一债主的幕后管理者是知名投资人索罗斯(George Soros)所经营的资本投资公司Soros Fund Management，对科胜讯的业务并不陌生──该投资公司也曾经是科胜讯长期的贷款方。 然而，要让贷款方相信科胜讯有能力、有长期性策略以及坚强的产品阵容，又是另一个难题；据了解，科胜讯与贷款方的协商组织重整策略拟定，是自2012年5月 就开始进行，直到近日才有结果。目前科胜讯的产品组合已经大幅精简化，但根据Chittipeddi说法，其中有几个是该公司特别看好的“成长动力”。 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 本文下一页：科胜讯对公司的复苏有信心

相关阅读：
• 科胜讯推出首款用于家庭网真和智能电视的超宽带音频芯片
• 科胜讯视频解码器支持HDTV机顶盒和个人录像机
• 科胜讯推出具有手机Bluetooth功能的“连网相框”参考设计zi6esmc

{pagination} 科胜讯是在1999年自Rockwell独立，在当时的语音与传真机/调制解调器芯片市场占据领导地位；而现在科胜讯看来打算走老路，积极想为其语音处理技术开辟一个利基市场。在今年初的国际消费性电子展(CES)，科胜讯展示了独家的远程语音输入处理器单芯片，能以语音触发(voice trigger)来开关电视，甚至可用于吵杂的室内。 同 样的语音处理芯片亦可用于VoIP网络电话，例如Skype TV的应用，也就是使用者能一边看电视一边透过Skyper软件与朋友通话。以上解决方案的关键是科胜讯的远程语音处理算法(支持回音消除、噪音抑制、 波束成型，以及预先/后端处理)，以及其高性能24位ADC。 除了语音处理技术，科胜讯也锁定打印机单芯片、游戏机用耳机以及安防视频监控。Chittipeddi表示， 该公司拥有坚强的客户阵容，包括Plantronics与Logitech等大厂。 值得一提的是，科胜讯避免进入已经竞争非常激烈的消费性视频产品、机顶盒等市场；这些市场大多数已经被对手博通占据，而科胜讯的新策略是在其利基市场做好差异化。挟其更集中资源的产品线，科胜讯对公司的复苏有信心、并采取更合理的成长策略；Chittipeddi表示，清偿了债务之后：“我们能产生现金流来 投资业务，不用再支付利息。” 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Judith Cheng 参考英文原文：How Conexant ended up filing for Chapter 11，by Junko Yoshida

相关阅读：
• 科胜讯推出首款用于家庭网真和智能电视的超宽带音频芯片
• 科胜讯视频解码器支持HDTV机顶盒和个人录像机
• 科胜讯推出具有手机Bluetooth功能的“连网相框”参考设计zi6esmc

{pagination} How Conexant ended up filing for Chapter 11 Junko Yoshida · Service of company's debt eventually led to its downfall. Madison, Wis.--Both Broadcom Corp. and Conexant Systems Inc. deployed aggressive acquisition strategies in similar market segments starting in the late 1990’s—each company betting the farm on the burgeoning broadband market. In the end, they achieved spectacularly different results. Broadcom (Irvine, Calif.), today armed with $8.01 billion in annual revenue, is the world’s second largest fabless chip company after Qualcomm Inc.. On the other hand, Conexant, who saw its revenue decline from $2.1 billion in 2000 to just $135 million in 2012, is fighting for survival. Conexant last Friday (March 1) filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Under the terms of the restructuring plan, Conexant's sole secured lender, QP SFM Capital Holdings Ltd., will provide $15 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing. Further, QP SFM Capital Holdings will exchange $195 million of secured debt into equity in the reorganized Conexant, an action that will wipe out all of Conexant’s outstanding secured debt. “We’ve been suffering from the debt overhang for a long time,” said Sailesh Chittipeddi (right), Conexant's president and CEO, in an interview with EE Times. Chittipeddi referenced the company’s feverish shopping spree in 1999. During the 11 months between August 1999 and July 2000, Conexant acquired seven companies for just under $2 billion in Conexant stock, Chittipeddi explained. “This was something we needed to address as soon as possible,” he added. The story of Conexant is typical of a vicious cycle. Conexant acquired a significant amount of debt in order to generate operating capital--for a number of the companies it acquired, and for its own ongoing business--all while it also had to deal with its existing debt. The burden of servicing that debt eventually caught up with Conexant. Worse, aware of the constant pressure to service debt whose due date looms large, “Our blue-chip customers started questioning viability of our company and migrating away from us,” Chittipeddi said. The fact that Eastman Kodak, for whom Conexant was the sole source of printer SoCs, filed for bankruptcy last year intensified Conexant’s crisis. Fortunately for Conexant, said Chittipeddi, “we had to deal with only one lender – QP SFM Capital Holding – to negotiate the terms of a restructuring, rather than multiple parties.” Further, it also helped that QP SFM Capital Holding, managed by Soros Fund Management LLC founded by billionaire George Soros, was no stranger to Conexant’s business, since the capital investment fund has been Conexant’s lender for a long time. However, convincing the lender that Conexant has a viable, long-term strategy with a solid portfolio was another matter. It took from May 2012 until last week to negotiate and structure a restructuring plan. Conexant, now with a significantly reduced portfolio, has several solid “growth engines,” according to Chittipeddi. Voice heritage Conexant spun off in 1999 from Rockwell, which at the time held a dominant position in the voice and fax/modem chip market. Now Conexant looks as though it’s going back to its voice heritage. The company is keen on carving out a niche for its voice processing technology. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Conexant showed off its proprietary far-field voice input processor SoC, which works on a voice trigger, to turn a TV on or off even in a noisy room. The same voice processing chip can be also used with VoIP applications such as Skype TV, so that a user can talk to another person on Skype even while the TV is blasting in high volume. Keys to such solutions are Conexant’s far-field voice processing algorithms (acoustic echo cancellation, noise reduction, beam forming as well as pre- and post-processing) and its high performance 24-bit A-to-D converter. Beyond voice processing, Conexant will focus on printer SoCs, headsets for gaming machines and video surveillance. Chittipeddi noted that Conexant today has a solid customer base including Plantronics and Logitech. It’s also important to note that Conexant is avoiding the already crowded market for consumer video products and set-tops, where competition is intense and often dominated by Broadcom. The company’s new commitment is to well-differentiated niche segments. With its more focused portfolio, Conexant is confident of recovery and managing its growth more reasonably. Free of debt payments, “we can generate cash that we can use for investing in our business, rather than for paying interest,” said Chittipeddi. What went wrong There are a million reasons why and how things went wrong for Conexant. However, betting on the Internet boom and building its business on “networking” wasn’t one of them. The problem for Conexant in the late 1990’s was that the company’s modem chips were built for the analog era. In order to compensate for this weakness, the company went whole hog acquiring technologies that looked useful for building the broadband future of the Internet. Of the nearly $2 billion Conexant spent during its shopping spree, the most stunning was the acquisition of Maker Communications, a Massachusetts-based software company whose chips worked with light-based technology. Maker Communications had all of $13.6 million in annual sales at the time it sold itself for nearly $1 billion in Conexant stock, according to Conexant. As all this happened, Conexant underestimated the constant need for large capital that had to be fed to the companies it had acquired. In 1999 and 2000, Conexant ended up issuing two tranches of debt, totaling $1 billion. Bubble burst And of course, in 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, a blow to the networking equipment vendors--such as Nortel and Lucent--to whom Conexant was planning to sell its chips. What followed then was a decline of Conexant’s revenues from $2.1 billion in 2000 to $521 million in 2002. While the usual management response to such a decline is to cut workforce to the bones, Conexant chose instead a business creation strategy. The company spun off business lines while retaining partial interests in the divested companies. Three new independent companies Conexant created were Jazz, Skyworks and Mindspeed. The strategy worked. It gave an opportunity to all three companies--Jazz, Skyworks and Mindspeed--to focus on their particular market segments, while Conexant was able to focus on the “digital home” market. The company's revenues increased each year from 2002 through 2004, but reversed again following fiscal 2006. The company attributed its reduced revenue to an overall drop in average selling price for products and a drop in demand for Conexant products. Looking back, Chittipeddi, who didn’t join Conexant until June 2006, observed that Conexant’s competitors had better architecture and better products than chips then designed by Conexant. When the revenue slid from 2006 to 2011, Conexant’s mounting challenge became the maturing of its debt. In order to address its debt load, the company sold off assets, including technology and business lines it had developed and acquired--such as Conexant’s remainder of its interest in Jazz and its broadband business. Then, in April, 2011, Conexant was acquired by investment firms Golden Gate Capital and August Holdings Inc. Conexant, after being taken private, continued to see revenues slide, despite its efforts to eliminate operation costs and streamline businesses. Dead leases Beyond the overall weakness of the semiconductor market, the company’s relentless debt dogged Conexant. It needed to break free from the burden--originally born out of the company’s acquisition spree and later divestitures--once and for all. Besides losing key customers like Kodak, Conexant was burdened by “oversized and untenable” real estate costs, according to the company. Chittipeddi noted that Conexant is saddled with dead leases--facilities the company no longer uses and the company has been unable to rent. Of lots totaling 300,000 square feet, “we only use 25,000 square feet,” he said. When asked how the company’s customers are responding to the company’s restructuring announcement, Chittipeddi said, “Their reactions have been relatively positive.” Further, a $50 million investment by the lender, will give Conexant “breathing room” to build a sound strategy and strong balance sheets at a reasonable pace, said the CEO. The company expects to receive court approval for its restructuring plan in less than 85 days.