Fisher Investments (FI), the Woodside private money management firm that “trolls the affluent streams of the world’s wealthy, looking for clients ready to invest their many millions”, according to its Hoovers profile, disclosed taking five percent stakes in two Santa Clara companies Monday in filings with the SEC.
The company raised its stake Read the rest of this entry »
Synaptics co-founder Federico Faggin told the company last month that he would retire as a director “not later than the next annual meeting of stockholders” in 2008. That took place Tuesday, the same day that shares of the Santa Clara maker of touch pads and other products for electronic devices hit an all-time high of $54.23.
Faggin, a Silicon Valley luminary who also co-founded the chip companies Cygnet Technologies and Zilog, was once employed by the legendary Fairchild Semiconductor and was department manager of research and development at Intel in the early 1970s when the world’s first microprocessor was developed.
He served as Synaptics chief executive for eleven years and had been a director since its inception. He patiently grew the company, which waited 17 years before going public in 2002. He even bought 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in the IPO.
The company’s fortune has been hitched to some degree by its vendor relationship with Apple, to whom it supplies technology used in its computers and handheld devices. Its shares dropped 22 percent in February 2005 the day after rival Cypress Semiconductor won a contract to furnish touchpads in some of Apple’s notebook computers. The recent success of Apple’s iPhone has led to the expectation that touch technology will spread to other handheld devices.
Of the $22.8 million worth of Synaptics shares Faggin has sold since its IPO, $16.9 million have been sold since the company reported fiscal 2007 fourth quarter results in August that showed profits more than tripling from the year-before quarter to $7.4 million on a 64 percent increase in sales. He leaves the company owning still owns 662, 516 shares currently worth $33 million.
Investors clearly expect good things from Synaptics. It’s price-to-earnings ratio, which averaged 29 over the last five years, is now up to 52. It’s shares closed Wednesday at $50.07, losing 5.2 percent on for the first day without Faggin.
Subscribe via RSS all feeds