Topic: Growth Stocks

Verigy Ltd. $23 – Nasdaq symbol VRGY

VERIGY LTD. $23 (Nasdaq symbol VRGY; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 60.2 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; WSSF Rating: Extra risk) makes equipment that chipmakers like Intel, Texas Instruments and Nvidia use to test their products. Verigy’s products help its customers cut down on production errors, and improve their profits.

The company designs its test systems itself, then hires a contract manufacturer to make its products.

Verigy spends about 12% of its revenue of $12.80 a share on research. This spending has helped it develop testing systems for more complex chips, such as the “system-on-a-chip”, which concentrates a wide variety of functions onto a single chip. Use of this design is expanding, since it helps manufacturers cut costs. This design also uses less power and is more reliable than multiple chip configurations.

Verigy designs its systems to be scalable and flexible, which means that a single system can test any number of chips. This helps Verigy’s customers speed up the launch of new chips. Verigy has now installed over 4,300 of its test systems worldwide.

Verigy’s reliance on a single, highly cyclical industry increases its risk. However, the company held cash of $371 million or $6.18 a share at April 30, 2008, and is debt free. That gives it plenty of flexibility to expand research or make acquisitions. The stock now trades at 17.0 times its fiscal 2009 earnings estimate of $1.35 a share.

Verigy is a buy.

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