Topic: How To Invest

Canadian investing: New acquisition fuels sales for Gennum

Gennum Corp., Toronto symbol GND, designs chips and other electronic equipment that lets television broadcasters store, edit and transfer video signals without losing picture quality. It also designs chips that make computer networks faster.

In its third quarter, which ended August 31, 2011, Gennum’s sales rose 6.6%, to $36.7 million from $34.4 million a year earlier (all amounts in U.S. dollars). The gain mainly reflects the contribution from U.K.-based Nanotech Semiconductor Ltd., which Gennum recently bought. Nanotech designs chips for fibre-optic communications networks.

Canadian investing: Gennum concentrates its focus on chip design

Gennum’s earnings fell 37.7%, to $3.3 million, or $0.10 a share. A year earlier, it earned $5.3 million, or $0.15 a share. That’s mainly due to the cost of integrating Nanotech. As well, Gennum plans to outsource its manufacturing operations as part of a new strategy to focus solely on designing chips. If you exclude all unusual costs, the company would have earned $0.14 a share in the latest quarter, above the consensus estimate by Canadian investing analysts of $0.12 a share.

The company spent $11.1 million (or 30.2% of its revenue) on research in the latest quarter. That’s up 9.9% from a year earlier. Gennum must recognize these costs immediately, so the company is more profitable than it appears.

Gennum holds cash of $20.8 million. It has no long-term debt.

We gave our advice on Gennum in The Successful Investor Hotline for September 23, 2011, which you can view immediately when you take a 1-month free trial to our flagship advisory on Canadian investing, The Successful Investor. Click here to learn how you can start profiting from The Successful Investor right away.

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