With Apple No Longer An Overhang, Dialog Needs To Build Its Future Business

I thought Dialog (OTCPK:DLGNF) (DLGS.XE) was undervalued back in January on ongoing uncertainty over the company’s relationship with Apple (AAPL) in power management chips and what the future of Dialog would look like. Since then, the shares have shot up about 50% as investors have come to a more rational set of expectations regarding the ongoing contributions of sub-PMIC sales to Apple and emerging opportunities in connectivity and charger products.

I do like Dialog’s emerging portfolio in low-power connectivity, a key enabling technology for IoT, and I like the amount of capital management has on hand to deploy toward more business-building deals. Management has been disciplined here so far, and I hope that will continue. Now, though, the shares are valued much more like any other semiconductor company, and while I don’t think the valuation is inflated, I also don’t see a big discount to underlying fair value.

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With Apple No Longer An Overhang, Dialog Needs To Build Its Future Business

Dialog Has Managed The Apple Situation Well, But Considerable Uncertainty Remains For What's Next

For a company that relies upon Apple (AAPL) for about three-quarters of its revenue, and has acknowledged that Apple will be switching to insourced options for more than half of that relatively soon, I believe Dialog Semiconductor’s (OTCPK:DLGNF) (DLGS.XE) executive team has managed the ensuing chaos about as well as you could reasonably ask. An IP/asset transfer and revenue-prepay deal de-risks the next few years and gives more clarity on what the new Dialog may look like, and a cash-rich balance sheet gives management M&A options while also funding a decent-sized buyback.

There’s a lot that Dialog still has to figure out. Still, this is a company that should have a non-Apple business with over $500 million in revenue in 2020, growing at a double-digit rate and supporting operating margins at least in the mid-to-high teens. If the company can find a value-building M&A transaction or two (and that’s a bigger-than-normal “if” with this company), there’s a real chance that Dialog 2.0 could be an interesting company. Valuation is more complicated now, but I do still see some upside in the shares, though I’d note that there are a lot of decent bargains in the chip space that don’t have this level of drama or uncertainty.

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Dialog Has Managed The Apple Situation Well, But Considerable Uncertainty Remains For What's Next

Nordic Semiconductor's Renewed Growth Has Melted Some Of The Skepticism

It has been an interesting twelve months for Nordic Semiconductor (OTCPK:NDCVF) (NOD.OL), a small Norway-based fabless semiconductor company focused on low-power wireless chip solutions.

During 2016, Nordic Semi had a poor run of quarterly results and saw a peak-to-trough run from the spring of 2016 to the spring of this year that took about 40% off the share price as investors worried about market share losses to rivals like Texas Instruments (TXN) and concerns about whether this small company with a relatively limited line-up could continue to compete effectively with larger players like TI, Dialog (OTC:DLGNF), Qualcomm (QCOM), Microchip (MCHP), Silicon Labs (SLAB), and the many other plays in low-power wireless.

The last two quarters have been stronger, though, and the shares have regained a fair bit of the ground lost in 2016 and early 2017. While wearables and consumer electronics remain tough markets, the company is seeing strong growth in its building/retail business and will be sampling its new low-power cellular IoT chips before the end of the year.

Nordic Semi doesn't look especially cheap on the fundamentals, but that's often the case with growth tech stocks; if Nordic can deliver high-teens growth for a few years and keep its margins up, the shares should continue to rise. That said, investors should note that the U.S.-listed ADRs are not very liquid; investors who can trade on foreign exchanges will find better liquidity on Nordic Semi's home market.

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Nordic Semiconductor's Renewed Growth Has Melted Some Of The Skepticism

Dialog Semiconductor - Too Good To Be True?

I don't want to like Dialog Semiconductor (OTC:DLGNF) (DLGS.XE). I don't like companies that get overwhelming amounts of revenue from a single customer, or companies with such erratic margins and no clear signs of ongoing improvement. Add in an unfocused/unclear M&A strategy and a U.S. ADR that has unusably low liquidity (the Xetra-listed shares are FAR more liquid and that's the way to invest, if you choose to do so...), and there are plenty of reasons to avoid Dialog.

And yet.

The valuation on Dialog looks a lot lower to me than it should be, even when I apply penalties to reflect the lack of diversification and so on. Even 4% to 5% long-term revenue and FCF growth would offer upside to today's price, and these shares could be meaningfully undervalued - particularly if you believe that the company can reinvest its sizable cash position into value-building M&A. Granted, if Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) drops Dialog's PMICs then all bets are off with respect to valuation, but investors could do well from here if these renewed worries prove overdone.

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Dialog Semiconductor - Too Good To Be True?