Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties including those described below. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of, or that we currently believe are not material, also may become important factors that affect us. Please see page 34 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of forward-looking statements that are qualified by these risk factors. If any of the following risks or others not specified below materialize, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline.
Summary
• If we are unsuccessful at executing our business plan and necessary transition activities following the sale of the FireEye Products business, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected and our ability to invest in and grow our business could be limited.
• We may not achieve the intended benefits of the sale of the FireEye Products business.
• If the IT security market does not continue to adopt our security solutions, our sales will not grow as quickly as anticipated, or at all, and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed.
• We have had operating losses each year since our inception, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
• We face intense competition and could lose market share to our competitors, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
• Real or perceived defects, errors or vulnerabilities in our solutions or services, the misconfiguration of our solutions, the failure of our solutions or services to detect or respond to a security breach or incident, or the failure of customers to take action on attacks identified by our solutions could harm our reputation and adversely impact our business, financial position and results of operations.
• Our results of operations may vary significantly from period to period, which could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline.
• If we are unable to retain our customers, renew and expand our relationships with them, and add new customers, we may not be able to sustain revenue growth and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
• Our ability to manage our business and monitor results is highly dependent upon IT systems. A failure of these systems or our planned QTC and ERP implementations could have a material adverse effect on our business.
• The implementation of our planned new ERP and change in related processes could negatively impact the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
• We have experienced network or data security incidents in the past, and we may experience additional network or data security incidents in the future, which, whether actual, alleged or perceived, may harm our reputation, create liability and adversely impact our financial results.
• If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.
• The price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile, and the value of your investment could decline.
• Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or sales of our common stock by our executive officers and directors under Rule 10b5-1 plans, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
Risks Related to the Sale of the FireEye Products Business
If we are unsuccessful at executing our business plan and necessary transition activities following the sale of the FireEye Products business, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected and our ability to invest in and grow our business could be limited.
On October 8, 2021, we completed the sale of the FireEye Products business to Magenta Buyer LLC (“McAfee Enterprise”), which is backed by a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group. This and other operational transitions have involved turnover in management and other key personnel and changes in our strategic direction. Transitions of this type can be disruptive, result in the loss of focus and employee morale and make the execution of business strategies more difficult. We also expect to pay one-time separation costs, a portion of which will be expenses paid by proceeds from the transaction. We have also entered into a transition services agreement under which we will provide assistance to McAfee Enterprise including, but not limited to, business
support services and IT services that have historically been provided to the FireEye Products business. We may experience delays in the anticipated timing of activities related to such transitions and higher than expected or unanticipated execution costs. If we do not succeed in executing on these transition activities while achieving our cost optimization goals, or if these efforts are more costly or time-consuming than expected, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected, which could limit our ability to invest in and grow our business. Even if we are successful at executing the transition of the FireEye Products business, the divestiture may not enhance long-term stockholder value as anticipated.
The TSA has an initial term of 12 months and may be extended by McAfee Enterprise for up to two three-month extensions. McAfee Enterprise may also terminate any or all services delivered pursuant to the TSA upon written notice, with such termination becoming effective the last day of the month following delivery of such notice. The TSA provides that McAfee Enterprise will pay us a variable fee each month based on the specific services we have provided to it in the previous month. Once services terminate under the TSA, we will not receive the associated fees for providing services and our level of staffing and cost structure may no longer be appropriate for our business needs at that time. If we are not successful at optimizing our costs in performing the services under the TSA, or if we fail to effectively prepare for and manage the effect of the termination of services under the TSA, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected and our ability to invest in and grow our business could be limited.
We may not achieve the intended benefits of the sale of the FireEye Products business.
We may not realize some or all of the anticipated benefits from the sale of the FireEye Products business. The constraints on our business imposed by the divestiture, including the resources required to focus on completing the divestiture and the limitations created by the sale of certain assets we have historically used in our business, a non-compete, bilateral commercial agreements and the loss of employees, could have a continuing impact on the execution of our business strategy and our overall operating results. Further, our remaining employees may become concerned about the future of our remaining operations and lose focus or seek other employment.
We may not realize some or all of the anticipated benefits from the divestiture with respect to the anticipated performance in our remaining business and the divestiture may in fact adversely affect our business. Our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the divestiture will depend, to a large extent, on our ability to successfully operate the remaining business as a standalone business and to grow and develop the remaining business in the absence of the divested business. In addition, some of the anticipated benefits may not occur for a significant time period following the completion of the divestiture. If our strategy is not successful and does not achieve our expectations over the long term, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected and the price of our common stock could decline.
Our future results of operations are dependent solely on the operations of the Mandiant Solutions business and will differ materially from our previous results.
The FireEye Products business generated approximately 58% of our total revenue for fiscal 2020, and approximately 63% of our total revenue for fiscal 2019. Accordingly, our future financial results will differ materially from our previous results since our future financial results will be dependent solely on our Mandiant Solutions business. Any downturn in our Mandiant Solutions business could have a material adverse effect on our future operating results and financial condition and could materially and adversely affect the trading price of our common stock.
Because we depend in part on FireEye Products and product telemetry data in the operation of our business, disruptions in the availability of such products or product telemetry data could negatively impact our ability to operate our business and provide services to our customers.
We use and depend in part on FireEye Products and product telemetry data from FireEye Products in the operation of our business. For example, in providing incident response services, we typically use a variety of FireEye Products as part of the investigation and remediation, and we use FireEye Product data for threat research, threat hunting and generating derivative content for our offerings such as Mandiant Security Validation. We have entered into a market cooperation and reseller agreement with McAfee Enterprise to, among other things, purchase FireEye Products for our continued use in our consulting business. We have also entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with McAfee Enterprise that allows us to, among other things, purchase telemetry data from FireEye Products until October 2024. However, there is an inherent risk that there could be a disruption in the availability of FireEye Products from McAfee Enterprise or in the sharing of product telemetry data by McAfee Enterprise, due to any number of events, including but not limited to supply chain disruptions, natural disasters or other events outside of the control of McAfee Enterprise. Any such disruptions in the availability of such products or product telemetry data could negatively impact our ability to operate our business and provide services to our customers in the same manner as before our divestiture of the FireEye Products business, which could harm our reputation and adversely impact our business, financial position and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry
If the IT security market does not continue to adopt our security solutions, our sales will not grow as quickly as anticipated, or at all, and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed.
Our future success depends on market adoption of our unique approach to IT security, which combines our technology, threat intelligence and security expertise in solutions that measure security effectiveness, investigate and respond to breaches and enable customers to adapt to changes in the threat environment. We are seeking to disrupt the IT security market with our security solutions. Our solutions interoperate with, but do not replace, other IT security solutions. Enterprises and governments may be hesitant to purchase our security solutions if they believe their existing solutions provide a level of IT security that is sufficient to meet their needs. Currently, many enterprises and governments have not allocated a fixed portion of their budgets to standalone threat intelligence or solutions that evaluate security effectiveness. As a result, to expand our customer base, we need to convince potential customers to allocate a portion of their discretionary budgets to purchase our technology, threat intelligence and expertise. However, even if we are successful in doing so, any future deterioration in general economic conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, may cause our customers to cut their overall IT spending, and such cuts may fall disproportionately on solutions like ours. If we do not succeed in convincing customers that our solutions should be an integral part of their overall approach to IT security and that a fixed portion of their annual IT budgets should be allocated to our solutions, our sales will not grow as quickly as anticipated, or at all, which would have an adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Even if there is significant demand for security solutions like ours, if our competitors include functionality that is, or is perceived to be, better than or equivalent to that of our solutions, we may have difficulty increasing the market penetration of our solutions. Furthermore, even if the functionality offered by other IT security providers is different and more limited than the functionality of our solutions, organizations may elect to accept such limited functionality in lieu of adding solutions and services from additional vendors like us, especially if competitor offerings are free or available at a lower cost.
In addition, changes in customer requirements could reduce customer demand for our security solutions. For example, if one or more governments share, on a free or nearly free basis, threat intelligence with other governmental agencies or organizations, such as critical infrastructure companies, then those agencies or organizations might have less demand for additional threat intelligence and may purchase less of our standalone threat intelligence offerings.
If enterprises and governments do not continue to adopt our security solutions for any of the reasons discussed above or for other reasons not contemplated, our sales would not grow as quickly as anticipated, or at all, and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be harmed.
We have had operating losses each year since our inception, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
We have incurred operating losses each year since our inception, including net losses of $72.8 million and $39.1 million during the three months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 respectively, relating to our Mandiant Solutions business. Any failure to increase our revenue and manage our cost structure as we grow our business could prevent us from achieving or, if achieved, maintaining profitability. Even if we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. If we are unable to become and remain profitable, the value of our company could decrease and our ability to raise capital, maintain our research and development efforts, and expand our business could be negatively impacted.
We face intense competition and could lose market share to our competitors, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The market for security solutions and services is intensely competitive and characterized by rapid changes in technology, customer requirements, industry standards, threat vectors and frequent new product introductions and improvements. We anticipate continued challenges from current competitors, which in many cases are more established and enjoy greater resources than us, as well as by new entrants into the industry. If we are unable to anticipate or effectively react to these competitive challenges, our competitive position could weaken, and we could experience a decline in our growth rate or revenue that could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Our current competitors include large cybersecurity vendors such as CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks and Rapid7 that have multiple offerings similar to ours; large accounting firms that offer incident response and strategic consulting services similar to
ours; and other small and large companies that offer solutions or services that compete in some of our markets. Other IT providers offer, and may continue to introduce, security features that compete with our Mandiant Advantage platform, either in stand-alone security products or as additional features in their network infrastructure products. Many of our existing competitors have, and some of our potential competitors could have, substantial competitive advantages such as:
•greater name recognition, longer operating histories and larger customer bases;
•larger sales and marketing budgets and resources;
•broader distribution and established relationships with channel and distribution partners and customers;
•greater customer support resources;
•greater resources to make acquisitions or enter into strategic partnerships;
•lower labor and research and development costs;
•larger and more mature intellectual property portfolios; and
•substantially greater financial, technical and other resources.
In addition, some of our larger competitors have substantially broader offerings and may be able to leverage their relationships with distribution partners and customers based on other products or solutions to gain business in a manner that discourages users from purchasing our solutions, subscriptions and services, including by selling at zero or negative margins, product bundling or offering closed technology platforms. Potential customers may also prefer to purchase from their existing suppliers rather than a new supplier regardless of performance or features of the solutions. Furthermore, with the completion of our sale of the FireEye Products business, organizations that purchased both Mandiant Solutions offerings and FireEye Products offerings may decide to not continue purchasing Mandiant Solutions offerings if they desire to limit their number of existing suppliers for cybersecurity offerings. As a result, even if the features of our platform are superior, customers may not purchase our solutions. In addition, new innovative start-up companies, and larger companies that are making significant investments in research and development, may invent similar or superior solutions and technologies that compete with our platform. Our current and potential competitors may also establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties that may further enhance their resources. Further, as our customers refresh the security solutions bought in prior years, they may seek to consolidate vendors, which may result in current customers choosing to purchase solutions from our competitors on an ongoing basis.
Some of our competitors have made or could make acquisitions of businesses that allow them to offer more competitive and comprehensive solutions. As a result of such acquisitions, our current or potential competitors may accelerate the adoption of new technologies that better address end-customer needs, devote greater resources to bring these products and services to market, initiate or withstand substantial price competition, or develop and expand their product and service offerings more quickly than we do. These competitive pressures in our market or our failure to compete effectively may result in price reductions, fewer orders, reduced revenue and gross margins, and loss of market share.
If we are unable to compete successfully, or if competing successfully requires us to take costly actions in response to the actions of our competitors, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
Real or perceived defects, errors or vulnerabilities in our solutions or services, the misconfiguration of our solutions, the failure of our solutions or services to detect or respond to a security breach or incident, or the failure of customers to take action on attacks identified by our solutions could harm our reputation and adversely impact our business, financial position and results of operations.
Because our solutions and services are complex, they have contained and may contain design defects or errors that are not detected until after their deployment. Our solutions also provide our customers with the ability to customize a multitude of settings, and it is possible that a customer could misconfigure our solutions or otherwise fail to configure our solutions in an optimal manner. Such defects and misconfigurations of our solutions could cause our solutions or services to be vulnerable to security attacks, or cause them to fail to respond to threats. In addition, because the techniques used by computer hackers to access or sabotage networks change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, there is a risk that an advanced attack could emerge that our solutions and services are unable to detect. Moreover, as our solutions and services are adopted by an increasing number of enterprises and governments, it is possible that the individuals and organizations behind advanced malware attacks will focus on finding ways to defeat our solutions and services. If this happens, our networks, solutions, services and subscriptions could be targeted by attacks specifically designed to disrupt our business and undermine the perception that our solutions and services are capable of providing superior IT security, which, in turn, could have a serious impact on our reputation as a provider of security solutions. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2020, we experienced an attack from a highly sophisticated threat actor which gained access to our networks and systems via trojanized updates to SolarWinds’ Orion IT
monitoring and management software as further described below. Moreover, our solutions must interoperate with our customers’ existing infrastructure, which often have different specifications, utilize multiple protocol standards, deploy products from multiple vendors, and contain multiple generations of products that have been added over time. As a result, unanticipated failures could occur if a customer deploys our solutions in an untested configuration. Similarly, if we inadvertently update our solutions with an erroneous configuration or untested detection content, invalid detections or downtime could occur. Any of these situations could result in negative publicity to us, damage to our reputation, declining sales, increased expenses and customer relations issues, and therefore adversely impact our business, financial position and results of operations.
If any of our customers becomes infected with malware after using our solutions or services, such customer could be disappointed with our solutions and services, regardless of whether our solutions or services blocked the theft of any of such customer’s data or would have blocked such theft if configured properly. Similarly, if our solutions detect attacks against a customer but the customer has not permitted our solutions to block the theft of customer data, customers and the public may erroneously believe that our solutions were not effective. For any security breaches or incidents impacting customers that use our services, such as customers that have hired us to monitor their networks and endpoints through our own or our co-branded security operation centers, breaches impacting those customers may result in customers and the public believing that our solutions and services failed. Furthermore, if any enterprises or governments that are publicly known to use our solutions or services are the subject of an advanced cyber-attack that becomes publicized, our other current or potential customers may look to our competitors for alternatives to our solutions and services. Real or perceived security breaches of or other security incidents impacting our customers’ networks could cause disruption or damage to their networks or other negative consequences and could result in negative publicity to us, damage to our reputation, declining sales, increased expenses and customer relations issues.
In addition, we cannot assure you that any limitation of liability provisions in our customer agreements, contracts with third-party vendors and service providers or other contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim relating to a security breach or other security-related matter. Furthermore, in the event that a customer suffers a security breach, we could be subject to claims based on a misunderstanding of the scope of our contractual warranties. While our insurance policies include liability coverage for certain of these matters, if we experienced a widespread security breach or other incident that impacted a significant number of our customers to whom we owe indemnity obligations, we could be subject to indemnity claims or other damages that exceed our insurance coverage. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any future claim will not be excluded or otherwise be denied coverage by any insurer. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results and reputation.
Any real or perceived defects, errors or vulnerabilities in our solutions and services, or any other actual or perceived failure of our solutions and services to detect or respond to an advanced threat, could result in:
•a loss of existing or potential customers or channel partners;
•delayed or lost revenue and harm to our financial condition and results of operations;
•a delay in attaining, or the failure to attain, market acceptance;
•the expenditure of significant financial and solution development resources in efforts to analyze, correct, eliminate, or work around errors or defects, or to address and eliminate vulnerabilities;
•an increase in warranty and other claims, or an increase in the cost of servicing warranty and other claims, either of which would adversely affect our gross margins;
•harm to our reputation or brand; and
•claims and litigation, regulatory inquiries, demands, investigations, enforcement actions, or other proceedings, and other claims and liabilities, all of which may be costly and burdensome and further harm our reputation.
Our results of operations may vary significantly from period to period, which could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline.
Our results of operations have varied significantly from period to period, and we expect that our results of operations, including, but not limited to our GAAP and non-GAAP measures, will continue to vary as a result of a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control and may be difficult to predict, including:
•our ability to attract new and retain existing customers or sell additional solutions to our existing customers;
•our ability to successfully execute our business plan and necessary transition activities following the sale of the FireEye Products business;
•changes in our mix of solutions, subscriptions and services sold, including changes in the average contract length for subscriptions and support;
•the timing and success of new platform, subscription or service introductions by us or our competitors;
•real or perceived reductions in the efficacy of our solutions by our customers or in the marketplace;
•budgeting cycles, seasonal buying patterns and purchasing practices of customers;
•the timing of new contracts of our solutions and length of our sales cycles;
•changes in customer, distributor or reseller requirements or market needs;
•changes in the growth rate of the IT security market, particularly the market for solutions that measure security effectiveness, or managed detection and response services;
•any change in the competitive landscape of the IT security market, including consolidation among our customers or competitors and strategic partnerships entered into by and between our competitors;
•deferral of orders from customers in anticipation of new products or product enhancements announced by us or our competitors;
•our ability to successfully and continuously expand our business domestically and internationally;
•reductions in customer retention rates for our subscriptions and support;
•decisions by organizations to purchase IT security solutions from larger, more established security vendors or from their primary IT equipment vendors;
•changes in our pricing policies or those of our competitors;
•any disruption in, or termination of, our relationships with channel partners;
•the timing and costs related to the development or acquisition of technologies or businesses or strategic partnerships;
•the lack of synergy or the inability to realize expected synergies, resulting from acquisitions or strategic partnerships;
•our inability to execute, complete or integrate efficiently any acquisition that we may undertake;
•increased expenses, unforeseen liabilities, or write-downs and any impact on our operating results from any acquisitions we consummate;
•insolvency or credit difficulties confronting our customers, affecting their ability to purchase or pay for our solutions, subscriptions and services;
•the cost and potential outcomes of future litigation, including, without limitation, the lawsuit described under the "Litigation" subheading in Note 11 Commitments and Contingencies contained in the "Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements" in Part , Item I of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q;
•the departure of key employees, including, without limitation, attrition due to vaccine mandates;
•seasonality or cyclical fluctuations in our business;
•political, economic and social instability;
•public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and related measures to protect the public health;
•future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies or practices;
•the amount and timing of operating costs and capital expenditures related to the maintenance and expansion of our business, operations and infrastructure;
•the amount and timing of costs related to any cost reduction initiatives and the impact of such initiatives; and
•increases or decreases in our revenues and expenses caused by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.
Any of the above factors, individually or in the aggregate, may result in significant fluctuations in our financial and other operating results from period to period. As a result of this variability, our historical results of operations should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Moreover, this variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet our operating plan or the expectations of investors or analysts for any period. If we fail to meet such expectations for these or other reasons, the market price of our common stock could fall substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.
If we are unable to retain our customers, renew and expand our relationships with them, and add new customers, we may not be able to sustain revenue growth and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
Although we have experienced rapid growth in the past with respect to our Mandiant Solutions business, we may not continue to grow in the future. Any success that we may experience in the future will depend, in large part, on our ability to, among other things:
•maintain, renew and expand our existing customer base;
•win new customers to our solutions;
•increase revenues from existing customers through increased use of our solutions, subscriptions and services within their organizations;
•improve the capabilities of our solutions and subscriptions through research and development;
•continue to develop our cloud-based solutions;
•maintain the rate at which customers purchase our subscriptions and support;
•continue to successfully expand our business domestically and internationally; and
•successfully compete with other companies.
If we are unable to maintain consistent or increasing revenue growth or if our revenues decline, it may be difficult to achieve and maintain profitability and our business and financial results could be adversely affected. Our revenue for any prior quarterly or annual periods should not be relied upon as any indication of our future revenue or revenue growth.
We could suffer disruptions, outages, defects, and other performance and quality problems with our platform or with the public cloud and internet infrastructure on which it relies.
Our business depends on our Mandiant Advantage platform to be available without disruption. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages, defects, and other performance and quality problems with our platform. We have also experienced, and may in the future experience, disruptions, outages, defects, and other performance and quality problems with the public cloud and internet infrastructure on which our platform relies. These problems can be caused by a variety of factors, including introductions of new functionality, vulnerabilities and defects in proprietary and open source software, human error or misconduct, natural disasters (such as tornadoes, earthquakes, or fires), capacity constraints, design limitations, or denial of service attacks or other security-related incidents.
Further, if our contractual and other business relationships with our public cloud providers are terminated, suspended, or suffer a material change to which we are unable to adapt, such as the elimination of services or features on which we depend, we could be unable to provide our platform and could experience significant delays and incur additional expense in transitioning customers to a different public cloud provider.
Any disruptions, outages, defects, and other performance and quality problems with our platform or with the public cloud and internet infrastructure on which it relies, or any material change in our contractual and other business relationships with our public cloud providers, could result in reduced use of our platform, increased expenses, including service credit obligations, and harm to our brand and reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Recent, past and future acquisitions and investments could disrupt our business and harm our financial condition and operating results.
Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our platform and grow our business in response to changing technologies, customer demands and competitive pressures. In some circumstances, we may decide to do so through the acquisition of complementary businesses and technologies rather than through internal development, including, for example, our acquisitions of Verodin, Inc. (“Verodin”), Respond Software, Inc. (“Respond Software”) and Intrigue Corp. (“Intrigue”).
The identification of suitable acquisition candidates can be difficult, time-consuming and costly, and we may not be able to successfully complete acquisitions that we target in the future. The risks we face in connection with acquisitions, including our acquisitions of Verodin, Respond Software and Intrigue include:
•diversion of management time and focus from operating our business to addressing acquisition integration challenges;
•our ability to successfully achieve billings and revenue targets of acquired businesses;
•coordination of research and development and sales and marketing functions;
•integration of solution and service offerings;
•retention of key employees from the acquired company;
•changes in relationships with strategic partners as a result of product acquisitions or strategic positioning resulting from the acquisition;
•cultural challenges associated with integrating employees from the acquired company into our organization;
•integration of the acquired company’s accounting, management information, human resources and other administrative systems, as well as the acquired operations, technology and rights into our offerings, and any unanticipated expenses related to such integration;
•the need to implement or improve controls, procedures, and policies at a business that prior to the acquisition may have lacked sufficiently effective controls, procedures and policies;
•financial reporting, revenue recognition or other financial or control deficiencies of the acquired company that we don’t adequately address and that cause our reported results to be incorrect;
•liability for activities of the acquired company before the acquisition, including intellectual property infringement claims, violations of laws, commercial disputes, tax liabilities and other known and unknown liabilities;
•completing the transaction and achieving or utilizing the anticipated benefits of the acquisition within the expected timeframe, or at all;
•unanticipated write-offs or charges; and
•litigation or other claims in connection with the acquired company, including claims from terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties which may differ from or be more significant than the risks our business faces.
Our failure to address these risks or other problems encountered in connection with our past or future acquisitions and investments could cause us to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of these acquisitions or investments, cause us to incur unanticipated liabilities, and harm our business generally. Future acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities. For example, in May 2019, we issued 8,404,609 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of Verodin and in November 2020, we issued 4,931,862 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of Respond Software.
There is also a risk that future acquisitions will result in the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities, amortization expenses, incremental operating expenses or the write-off of goodwill, any of which could harm our financial condition or operating results.
Our growth depends on the development, expansion and success of our partner relationships.
As part of our vision for our business, we are building, and will need to grow and maintain, a partner ecosystem of providers of complementary cybersecurity offerings. Some of our existing and future partners may have offerings that compete with our offerings in certain markets. The relationships we have with our partners, and that our partners have with our customers, provide our customers with enhanced value from our Mandiant Advantage platform. Our future growth will be increasingly dependent on the success of these relationships, and if we are unsuccessful in growing and maintaining these relationships or the types and quality of data supported by or available for consumption on our platform, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
If we are unable to maintain successful relationships with our channel partners and technology alliance partners, or if our channel partners or technology alliance partners fail to perform, our ability to market, sell and distribute our platform will be limited, and our business, financial position and results of operations will be harmed.
In addition to our direct sales force, we rely on our indirect channel partners to sell and support our platform. We derive a substantial portion of our revenue from sales of our solutions, subscriptions and services through, or with the assistance of, our indirect channel, and we expect that sales through channel partners will continue to be a significant percentage of our revenue. We also partner with our technology alliance partners to design go-to-market strategies that combine our platform with solutions or services provided by our technology alliance partners.
Our agreements with our channel partners and our technology alliance partners are generally non-exclusive, meaning our partners may offer customers solutions from several different companies, including solutions that compete with ours. If our channel partners do not effectively market and sell our platform, choose to use greater efforts to market and sell their own solutions or those of our competitors, or fail to meet the needs of our customers, our ability to grow our business and sell our platform may be adversely affected. Our channel partners and technology alliance partners may cease marketing our platform with limited or no notice and with little or no penalty, and new channel partners require extensive training and may take several months or more to achieve productivity. The loss of a substantial number of our channel partners, our possible inability to replace them, or the failure to recruit additional channel partners could materially and adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, sales by channel partners are more likely than direct sales to involve collectability concerns, particularly in developing markets. Our channel partner structure could also subject us to lawsuits or reputational harm if, for example, a channel partner misrepresents the functionality of our platform to customers or violates applicable laws or our corporate policies.
Our ability to achieve revenue growth in the future will depend in part on our success in maintaining successful relationships with our channel partners, and in training our channel partners to independently sell and deploy our platform. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with these channel partners or otherwise develop and expand our indirect sales channel, or if our channel partners fail to perform, our business, financial position and results of operations could be adversely affected.
If we fail to effectively manage our growth, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be harmed.
Although our Mandiant Solutions business has experienced significant growth in the past, we cannot provide any assurance that it will continue to grow at the same rate or at all. There is no assurance that we will be able to successfully implement or scale improvements to our systems, processes and controls in a manner that keeps pace with our growth or that such systems, processes and controls will be effective in preventing or detecting errors, omissions or fraud.
As part of our efforts to improve our internal systems, processes and controls, we have licensed technology from third parties. The support services available for such third-party technology are outside of our control and may be negatively affected by consolidation in the software industry. In addition, if we do not receive adequate support for the software underlying our systems, processes and controls, our ability to provide solutions and services to our customers in a timely manner may be impaired, which may cause us to lose customers, limit us to smaller deployments of our platform or increase our technical support costs.
Many of our expenses are relatively fixed, at least in the short term. If our projections or assumptions on which we base our projections are incorrect, we may not be able to adjust our expenses rapidly enough to avoid an adverse impact on our profitability or cash flows.
To manage this growth effectively, we must continue to improve our operational, financial and management systems and controls by, among other things:
•effectively hiring, training and integrating new employees, particularly members of our sales and management teams;
•further improving our key business applications, processes and IT infrastructure, including our data centers, to support our business needs;
•continuing to refine our ability to forecast our bookings, billings, revenues, expenses and cash flows;
•enhancing our information and communication systems to ensure that our employees and offices around the world are well coordinated and can effectively communicate with each other and our growing base of channel partners and customers;
•improving our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures to ensure timely and accurate reporting of our operational and financial results; and
•appropriately documenting and testing our IT systems and business processes.
These and other improvements in our systems and controls will require significant capital expenditures and the allocation of valuable management and employee resources. If we fail to implement these improvements effectively, our ability to manage our expected growth, ensure uninterrupted operation of key business systems and comply with the rules and regulations applicable to public reporting companies would be impaired, and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be harmed.
If the general level of advanced cyber-attacks declines, or is perceived by our current or potential customers to have declined, our business could be harmed.
Our business is substantially dependent on enterprises and governments recognizing that advanced cyber-attacks are pervasive and are not effectively prevented by legacy security solutions. High visibility attacks on prominent enterprises and governments have increased market awareness of the problem of advanced cyber-attacks and help to provide an impetus for enterprises and governments to devote resources to protecting against advanced cyber-attacks, such as testing our Mandiant Advantage platform, purchasing it, and broadly deploying it within their organizations. If advanced cyber attacks were to decline, or enterprises or governments perceived that the general level of advanced cyber-attacks have declined, our ability to attract new customers and expand our offerings within existing customers could be materially and adversely affected. A change in the threat landscape may reduce the demand from customers or prospects for our solutions, and therefore could increase our sales cycles and harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
If organizations do not adopt cloud-based SaaS-delivered security solutions, our ability to grow our business and results
of operations may be adversely affected.
We believe our future success will depend in large part on the growth, if any, in the market for cloud-based SaaS-delivered security solutions. The use of SaaS solutions to manage and automate security and IT operations is at an early stage and rapidly evolving. As such, it is difficult to predict its potential growth, if any, customer adoption and retention rates, customer demand for our solutions, or the success of existing competitive solutions. Any expansion in our market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with our solutions and those of our competitors. If our solutions do not achieve widespread adoption or there is a reduction in demand for our solutions due to a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, competing solutions, concerns relating to privacy, data protection, or cybersecurity, decreases in corporate spending, weakening economic conditions or otherwise, it could result in early terminations, reduced customer retention rates, or decreased revenue, any of which would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial results. We do not know whether the trend in adoption of cloud-based SaaS-delivered security solutions we have experienced in the past will continue in the future. Furthermore, if we or other SaaS security providers experience security incidents, loss or disclosure of customer data, disruptions in delivery, or other problems, the market for SaaS solutions as a whole, including our security solutions, may be negatively affected. You should consider our business and prospects in light of the risks and difficulties we encounter in this new and evolving market.
If we are not able to maintain and enhance our Mandiant brand and our reputation as a provider of high-quality security solutions and services, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.
We believe that maintaining and enhancing our Mandiant brand and our reputation as a provider of high-quality security solutions and services is critical to our relationship with our existing customers, channel partners, and technology alliance partners and our ability to attract new customers and partners. The successful promotion of our Mandiant brand will depend on a number of factors, including our marketing efforts, and ultimately our ability to continue to develop additional high-quality security solutions and our ability to continue to provide services valued by customers. Although we believe it is important for our growth, our brand promotion activities may not be successful or yield increased revenue.
In addition, in October 2021, we rebranded and changed our name from FireEye, Inc. to Mandiant, Inc. Customers, suppliers and partners may be confused by the name change leading to disruptions in our business, and investors may not understand or appreciate our rebranding efforts, which could materially and adversely impact our business, results of operations, financial condition and trading price of our common stock.
We rely on our management team and other key employees and will need additional personnel to grow our business, and the loss of one or more key employees or our inability to hire, integrate, train and retain qualified personnel, including members for our board of directors, could harm our business.
Our future success is substantially dependent on our ability to hire, integrate, train, retain and motivate the members of our management team and other key employees throughout our organization, including key employees obtained through our acquisitions. Competition for highly skilled personnel is intense, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Washington D.C. Area, where we have a substantial presence and need for highly skilled personnel. We may not be successful in hiring or retaining qualified personnel to fulfill our current or future needs, and potential changes in U.S. immigration and work authorization laws and regulations, including those that restrain the flow of technical and professional talent, may make it difficult to renew or obtain visas for highly skilled personnel that we have hired or are actively recruiting. Following the divestiture of the FireEye Products business, we remain highly dependent on the services of Kevin Mandia, our Chief Executive Officer, who is critical to our thought leadership, market presence, reputation, future vision and strategic direction. We are also substantially dependent on the continued service of our existing engineering personnel because of the complexity of our solutions. Engineering personnel and other employees in the technology industry, including the cyber security industry, are increasingly able to work
remotely, which in turn increases employee mobility and our risk of unwanted employee attrition. Our competitors and other companies in the technology industry may be successful in recruiting and hiring members of our management team or other key employees, including key employees obtained through our acquisitions, and it may be difficult for us to find suitable replacements on a timely basis, on competitive terms, or at all. Also, to the extent we hire employees from mature public companies with significant financial resources, we may be subject to allegations that such employees have been improperly solicited, or that they have divulged proprietary or other confidential information or that their former employers own such employees’ inventions or other work product.
The workforce reductions made in connection with our restructuring plans may adversely affect our ability to attract and retain highly skilled employees. Even if our key personnel are not directly affected by these reductions, the termination of others may have a negative impact on morale and our ability to retain current personnel, as well as our ability to attract qualified new personnel in the future.
We made a number of organizational changes over the past year and, from time to time, key personnel leave our company. For example, we recently announced that Frank Verdecanna plans to retire in 2022 and that Alexa King stepped down as our Executive Vice President, Corporate and Legal Affairs, General Counsel, and Secretary due to her desire to pursue other opportunities and interests. In addition, in connection with the sale of the FireEye Products business, we experienced employee attrition, including the departure of certain members of senior management. These and other leadership transitions and management changes can be inherently difficult to manage, may cause uncertainty or a disruption to our business, and may increase the likelihood of turnover in other key officers and employees. Our success depends in part on having a successful leadership team. If we cannot effectively manage these and other leadership transitions and management changes, it could make it more difficult to successfully operate our business and pursue our business goals.
In addition, we believe that it is important to establish and maintain a corporate culture that facilitates the maintenance and transfer of institutional knowledge within our organization and also fosters innovation, teamwork, a passion for customers and a focus on execution. Any of our organizational changes may result in a loss of institutional knowledge and cause disruptions to our business. Furthermore, if we are not successful in identifying and recruiting new key employees and integrating them into our organization, and creating effective working relationships among them and our other key employees, such failure could delay or hinder our development of net and enhanced offerings and the achievement of our strategic objectives, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our employees, including our executive officers, work for us on an “at-will” basis, which means they may terminate their employment with us at any time. We do not maintain key person life insurance policies on any of our key employees. If Mr. Mandia or one or more of our other key employees resigns or otherwise ceases to provide us with their service, our business could be harmed.
Any litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.
From time to time, we are and may become subject to legal proceedings and claims, such as claims brought by our customers in connection with commercial disputes, employment claims made by our current or former employees, intellectual property claims, or securities class actions or other claims related to our sale of the FireEye Products business or any volatility in the trading price of our common stock. For example, on July 13, 2021, an alleged stockholder filed an action against the Company, seeking inspection of certain of books and records pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. On July 26, 2021, the parties filed a stipulation that the Company is not obligated to respond to the complaint at this time. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on November 3, 2021. Also on November 3, 2021, the same alleged stockholder filed another action against the Company and its board of directors, alleging a violation of Delaware General Corporation Law Sec. 271 and breaches of fiduciary duty in connection with our sale of the FireEye Products business.
Litigation might result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Insurance might not cover such claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims, and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us (including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements). A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, potentially harming our business, financial position, and results of operations. In addition, we cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage and coverage for errors and omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or that our insurers will not deny coverage as to any future claim.
If we do not accurately anticipate and respond promptly to changes in our customers’ security needs or scale our business in a cost-effective manner, our competitive position, prospects and financial condition could be harmed.
The IT security market has grown quickly and is expected to continue to evolve rapidly. We have identified a number of new solutions and enhancements to our Mandiant Advantage platform that we believe are important to our continued success in the IT security market. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in developing and marketing, on a timely basis, such new solutions or enhancements or that our new solutions or enhancements will adequately address the changing needs of the marketplace. Although the market expects rapid introduction of new solutions and enhancements to respond to customer needs, the development of these solutions and enhancements is difficult and the timetable for commercial release and availability is uncertain, as there can be significant time lags between initial beta releases and the commercial availability of new solutions and enhancements. We may experience unanticipated delays in the availability of new solutions and enhancements to our platform and fail to meet customer expectations with respect to the timing of such availability. If we do not quickly respond to the rapidly changing and rigorous needs of our customers by developing, releasing and making available on a timely basis new solutions and enhancements to our platform that can adequately respond to our customers’ needs, our competitive position and business prospects will be harmed. Furthermore, from time to time, we or our competitors may announce new solutions with capabilities or technologies that could have the potential to replace or shorten the life cycles of our existing solutions. There can be no assurance that announcements of new solutions will not cause customers to defer purchasing our existing solutions.
Additionally, the process of developing new technology is expensive, complex and uncertain. The success of new solutions and enhancements depends on several factors, including appropriate component costs, timely completion and introduction, differentiation of new solutions and enhancements from those of our competitors and market acceptance. To maintain our competitive position, we must continue to commit significant resources to developing new solutions or enhancements to our Mandiant Advantage platform before knowing whether these investments will be cost-effective or achieve the intended results. There can be no assurance that we will successfully identify new market opportunities, develop and bring new solutions or enhancements to market in a timely manner, or achieve market acceptance of our solutions or that solutions and technologies developed by others will not render our Mandiant Advantage platform obsolete or noncompetitive. If we expend significant resources on researching and developing solutions or enhancements to our platform and such solutions or enhancements are not successful, our business, financial position and results of operations may be adversely affected.
In addition, we provide our cloud-based solutions and services through third-party data center hosting facilities located in the United States and other countries. While we control and have access to our servers and all of the components of our network that are located in our data centers, we do not control the operation of these hosting facilities. We rely on the owners or operators of these hosting facilities in maintaining the availability of their services, maintenance of their infrastructure, and in providing appropriate backup, disaster recovery and security measures. The owners of the data center hosting facilities have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms, or if one of our data center operators is acquired, we may be required to transfer our servers and other infrastructure to new data center facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible service interruption in connection with doing so.
Furthermore, we have and will continue to make substantial investments to support growth of our Mandiant Advantage platform. If our cloud-based server costs were to increase, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected. In addition, ongoing improvements to cloud infrastructure may be more expensive than we anticipate, and may not yield the expected savings in operating costs or the expected performance benefits. In addition, we may be required to re-invest any cost savings achieved from prior cloud infrastructure improvements in future infrastructure projects to maintain the levels of service required by our customers. We may not be able to maintain or achieve cost savings from our investments, which could harm our financial results.
Our current research and development efforts may not produce successful solutions or enhancements to our platform that result in significant revenue, cost savings or other benefits in the near future, if at all.
We must continue to dedicate significant financial and other resources to our research and development efforts if we are to maintain our competitive position. However, developing solutions and enhancements to our platform is expensive and time consuming, and there is no assurance that such activities will result in significant new marketable solutions or enhancements to our platform, design improvements, cost savings, revenue or other expected benefits. If we spend significant resources on research and development and are unable to generate an adequate return on our investment, our business and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.
Seasonality may cause fluctuations in our revenue.
We believe there are significant seasonal factors that may cause us to record higher revenue in some quarters compared with others. We believe this variability is largely due to (i) our customers’ budgetary and spending patterns, as many customers spend the unused portions of their discretionary budgets prior to the end of their fiscal years, and (ii) our sales compensation plans, which are typically structured around annual quotas and stair step commission rates. For example, we have historically recorded our highest level of revenue in our fourth quarter, which we believe corresponds to the fourth quarter of a majority of our customers. Similarly, we have historically recorded our second-highest level of revenue in our third quarter, which corresponds to the fourth quarter of U.S. federal agencies and other customers in the U.S. federal government. Our growth rate over the last couple years may have made seasonal fluctuations more difficult to detect. If our rate of growth slows over time, seasonal or cyclical variations in our operations may become more pronounced, and our business, results of operations and financial position may be adversely affected.
Our operating history and changes to our business model makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.
We were founded in 2004, and we shipped our first commercially successful solution for on-premises network security in 2008. Since then, we have continued to expand our offerings, both organically and through acquisitions, to address changes in the threat environment, evolving customer requirements, and the continued migration of workloads to cloud platforms. On October 8, 2021, we completed the sale of the FireEye Products business. Our future results of operations are now dependent solely on the operations of the Mandiant Solutions business. Acquired solutions within our continuing business include Mandiant Corporation’s advanced threat intelligence capabilities and incident response and security consulting services; iSIGHT Security's standalone threat intelligence subscriptions; Verodin’s security instrumentation offering; Respond Software’s cybersecurity investigation automation technology; and Intrigue’s attack surface management offering. The markets for many of our acquired solutions are in the early stages of development and customer adoption remains limited. Additionally, most of our acquired solutions are sold as subscriptions, often to large enterprises or governments, and contract terms may vary significantly. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently encountered by emerging technology-based companies in developing markets.
If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties are incorrect or change in response to changes in the IT security market, our results of operations and financial results could differ materially from our plans and forecasts. Although we have experienced rapid growth in the past, there is no assurance that such growth will continue. Any success we may experience in the future will depend in large part on our ability to, among other things:
•successfully execute our business plan and necessary transition activities following the sale of the FireEye Products business;
•maintain and expand our customer base and the ways in which customers use our solutions and services;
•expand revenue from existing customers through increased or broader use of our solutions, subscriptions and services within their organizations;
•grow our revenues from software, subscriptions and recent offerings from acquisitions such as Verodin and Respond Software;
•convince customers to allocate a fixed portion of their annual IT budgets to our solutions and services;
•improve the performance and capabilities of our platform through research and development;
•effectively expand our business domestically and internationally; and
•successfully compete with other companies that currently provide, or may in the future provide, solutions like ours that protect against advanced cyber-attacks, measure security effectiveness, or investigate and respond to attacks.
If we are unable to achieve our key objectives, including the objectives listed above, our business and results of operations will be adversely affected and the fair market value of our common stock could decline.
We are exposed to the credit risk of some of our distributors, resellers and customers and to credit exposure in weakened markets, which could result in material losses.
Most of our sales are on an open credit basis. Although we have programs in place that are designed to monitor and mitigate these risks, we cannot assure you these programs will be effective in reducing our credit risks, especially as we expand our business internationally. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic may negatively affect the ability of our customers, especially in certain industries such as travel, entertainment, food and hospitality, to pay us on a timely basis or at all. If we are unable to adequately control these risks, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
Failure to comply with governmental laws and regulations could harm our business.
Our business is subject to regulation by various U.S. federal, state, local and foreign governmental agencies, including agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing employment and labor laws, workplace safety, consumer protection laws, privacy, data-protection and cybersecurity laws, anti-bribery laws (including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Anti-Bribery Act), import/export controls, federal securities laws and tax laws and regulations. In certain jurisdictions, these regulatory requirements may be more stringent than those in the United States. Noncompliance with applicable regulations or requirements could subject us to investigations, sanctions, enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, fines, damages, civil and criminal penalties, injunctions or other collateral consequences. If any governmental sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and an increase in professional fees. U.S. regulations surrounding our operating activities in foreign jurisdictions are not always consistent with, and at times are in contravention to, the local regulations or laws in such jurisdictions. Enforcement actions and sanctions could harm our business, reputation, results of operations and financial condition.
If we do not achieve increased tax benefits as a result of our corporate structure, our operating results and financial condition may be negatively impacted.
We generally conduct our international operations through wholly-owned subsidiaries and report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. In 2019, we reorganized our corporate structure and intercompany relationships to better align our corporate organization with the expansion of our international business activities. Although we anticipate achieving a reduction in our overall effective tax rate in the future as a result of this reorganized corporate structure, we may not realize any benefits. Our intercompany relationships are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by taxing authorities in various jurisdictions. The relevant taxing authorities may disagree with our determinations as to the income and expenses attributable to specific jurisdictions. If such a disagreement were to occur, and our position were not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows and lower overall profitability of our operations. In addition, if the intended tax treatment of our reorganized corporate structure is not accepted by the applicable taxing authorities, changes in tax law negatively impact the structure or we do not operate our business consistent with the structure and applicable tax laws and regulations, we may fail to achieve any tax advantages as a result of the reorganized corporate structure, and our future operating results and financial condition may be negatively impacted. In addition, we continue to evaluate our corporate structure in light of current and pending tax legislation, and any changes to our corporate structure may require us to incur additional expenses and may impact our overall effective tax rate.
We could be subject to additional tax liabilities.
We are subject to U.S. federal, state, local and sales taxes in the United States and foreign income taxes, withholding taxes and transaction taxes in numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our tax positions and our worldwide provision for taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many activities and transactions for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. In addition, our tax obligations and effective tax rates could be adversely affected by changes in the relevant tax, accounting and other laws, regulations, principles and interpretations, including those relating to income tax nexus, corporate income tax rates and the proposed global minimum tax, by recognizing tax losses or lower than anticipated earnings in jurisdictions where we have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated earnings in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory rates, by changes in foreign currency exchange rates, or by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities. We may be audited in various jurisdictions, and such jurisdictions may assess additional taxes, sales taxes and value-added taxes against us. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of any tax audits or litigation could be materially different from our historical tax provisions and accruals, which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results or cash flows in the period for which a determination is made.
Our failure to raise additional capital or generate the significant capital necessary to expand our operations and invest in new solutions could reduce our ability to compete and could harm our business.
We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new solutions and enhancements to our platform, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional equity financing, our stockholders may experience significant dilution
of their ownership interests and the per share value of our common stock could decline. Furthermore, if we engage in additional debt financing, the holders of debt would have priority over the holders of common stock, and we may be required to accept terms that restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness. We may also be required to take other actions that would otherwise be in the interests of the debt holders and force us to maintain specified liquidity or other ratios, any of which could harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition. If we need additional capital and cannot raise it on acceptable terms, we may not be able to, among other things:
•develop or enhance our solutions and subscriptions;
•continue to expand our sales and marketing and research and development organizations;
•acquire complementary technologies, solutions or businesses;
•expand operations, in the United States or internationally;
•hire, train and retain employees; or
•respond to competitive pressures or unanticipated working capital requirements.
Our failure to do any of these things could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Systems and the Transition to New Quote-to-Cash and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems
Our ability to manage our business and monitor results is highly dependent upon IT systems. A failure of these systems or our planned QTC and ERP implementations could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are highly dependent upon a variety of IT systems to operate our business. In order to continue to support our growth and scale as a SaaS company, we are making significant technological upgrades to our information systems. We are in the process of implementing a new quote-to-cash (“QTC”) system in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 and a new enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) system in the second quarter of fiscal 2022, and are updating processes to perform various functions and improve on the efficiency of our global business. This is a complicated, lengthy and expensive process that will result in a diversion of resources from other operations. Continued execution of the project plan, or a divergence from it, may result in cost overruns, project delays or business interruptions. In addition, divergence from our project plan could negatively impact the timing and/or extent of benefits we expect to achieve from the system and process efficiencies. Failure to properly or adequately address any unaccounted for or unforeseen issues in successfully replacing our legacy systems could negatively impact the company’s ability to perform necessary business operations, which could adversely affect our reputation, competitive position, business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any disruptions, delays or deficiencies in the design and/or implementation of the new QTC and ERP systems, or in the performance or migration of our legacy systems, particularly any disruptions, delays or deficiencies that impact our operations, could adversely affect our ability to effectively run and manage our business. The implementation of our planned new QTC and ERP systems subjects us to inherent risks associated with migrating from our legacy systems, including, without limitation, our ability to process orders, provide services and customer support, send invoices and track payments, fulfill contractual obligations, fulfill federal, state and local reporting and filing requirements in a timely or accurate manner, or otherwise operate our business. In addition, if any issues with respect to the new systems result in, or contribute to, a delay in our timely reporting of our results of operations for any period or our not filing one or more periodic reports with the SEC on time, the price of our common stock could decline substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class actions. Further, as we are dependent upon our ability to gather and promptly transmit accurate information to key decision makers, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected if our information systems do not allow us to transmit accurate information, even for a short period of time. Failure to properly or adequately address these issues could negatively impact our ability to perform necessary business operations, which could adversely affect our reputation, competitive position, business, results of operations and financial condition.
In addition, the information systems of companies we acquire may not be sufficient to meet our standards or we may not be able to successfully convert them to provide acceptable information on a timely and cost-effective basis. Furthermore, we must attract and retain qualified people to operate our systems, expand and improve them, integrate new programs effectively with our existing programs, and convert to new systems efficiently when required. Any disruption to our business due to such issues, or an increase in our costs to cover these issues that is greater than what we have anticipated, could have an adverse effect on our financial results and operations.
The implementation of our planned new ERP and change in related processes could negatively impact the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
Our ERP system is critical to our ability to accurately maintain books and records, record transactions, provide important information to our management and prepare our consolidated financial statements. The implementation of our planned new ERP system in the second quarter of fiscal 2022 will also require the transformation of business and financial processes, and any such changes involves risks, including potential transaction errors, processing inefficiencies and loss of data. If the transition to our planned new ERP system is not successful, and the new system and new processes do not operate as intended, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting could be adversely affected and our ability to assess it adequately could be further impacted. If difficulties in implementing the new ERP system or related processes result in a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, a failure to remediate the material weakness could also negatively impact our ability to prepare our future financial statements in conformity with GAAP. If we experience ongoing disruptions with such implementation and/or are unable to remediate any such material weakness, such events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, competitive position, business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any additional costs, cost overruns and delays with implementation of our new QTC and ERP systems may adversely affect our business and results of operations.
The implementation of our planned new QTC and ERP systems has and will continue to involve substantial expenditures, as well as design, development and implementation activities. Until the new systems are fully implemented, we expect to incur additional selling, general and administrative expenses and capital expenditures to implement and test the systems, and there can be no assurance that issues relating to the systems will not occur or be identified. Our business and results of operations may be adversely affected if we experience operating problems, additional costs, or cost overruns during the QTC and ERP implementation process, or if any of the systems or the related processes changes significantly.
Risks Related to Privacy and Data Protection
We have experienced network or data security incidents in the past, and we may experience additional network or data security incidents in the future, which, whether actual, alleged or perceived, may harm our reputation, create liability and adversely impact our financial results.
Increasingly, companies are subject to a wide variety of attacks on their networks on an ongoing basis. In addition to traditional computer “hackers,” malicious code (such as viruses and worms), phishing attempts, ransomware, employee theft or misuse, accidental disclosure, and denial of service attacks, sophisticated nation-state and nation-state supported actors engage in intrusions and attacks (including advanced persistent threat intrusions) and add to the risks to our internal networks, cloud deployed enterprise and customer facing environments and the information they store and process. We also utilize third-party service providers to host, transmit, or otherwise process electronic data in connection with our business activities. We and/or our third-party service providers have faced and may continue to face security threats and attacks from a variety of sources. Our data, corporate systems, third-party systems and security measures have been and may continue to be subject to breaches or intrusions due to the actions of outside parties, employee error, malfeasance, a combination of these, or otherwise, including social engineering and employee and contractor error or malfeasance, and, as a result, an unauthorized party may obtain access to our systems, networks, or data. There have been and may continue to be significant software supply chain attacks, and we cannot guarantee that our or our third-party service providers’ systems and networks have not been breached or that they do not contain exploitable defects or bugs that could result in a breach of or disruption to our systems and networks or the systems and networks of third parties that support us and our services. Techniques used to sabotage or obtain unauthorized access to systems and networks are constantly evolving and, in some instances, are not identified until or after they are launched against a target, and we may face difficulties or delays in identifying or otherwise responding to any attacks or actual or potential breaches of security. Furthermore, as a well-known provider of security solutions, we may be a more attractive target for such attacks. A breach in our data security or an attack against our service availability, or that of our third-party service providers, could impact our solutions and subscriptions, creating system disruptions or slowdowns and exploiting security vulnerabilities of our solutions, and the information stored on our networks or those of our third-party service providers could be accessed, publicly disclosed, altered, lost, or stolen, which could result in a loss of intellectual property or loss of data and subject us to liability and cause us financial harm.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, we experienced an attack from a highly sophisticated threat actor, one whose discipline, operational security, and techniques lead us to believe it was a state-sponsored attack. Like numerous other public and private organizations affected by this attack, the threat actor gained access to our networks and systems via trojanized updates to SolarWinds’ Orion IT monitoring and management software. We conducted a comprehensive investigation in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other key partners, including Microsoft. Our investigation identified that the attacker targeted and accessed certain Red Team assessment tools that we use to test our customers’ security. These tools mimic the
behavior of many cyber threat actors and enable us to provide essential diagnostic security services to our customers and, if used or publicly disclosed by the threat actor, could be used to conduct additional attacks on us or other organizations. Our investigation also identified that, consistent with a nation-state cyber-espionage effort, the attacker was able to access certain of our internal systems and primarily sought information related to certain government customers. We notified affected customers and government agencies, as we deemed was required or appropriate. We have incurred costs to respond to this attack and may continue to incur costs to remediate and support our efforts to enhance our security measures.
There can be no assurance that we will be successful in preventing security breaches or other security incidents nor that we will be successful in mitigating their effects, despite the implementation of security measures for systems, networks, or data within our control. Similarly, there can be no assurance that our third-party service providers, distributors and other contractors will be successful in protecting our data on their systems or in protecting other systems upon which we may rely. Any actual, alleged or perceived breach of network security in our systems or networks, or any other actual, alleged or perceived data security incident we or our third-party service providers suffer, could result in damage to our reputation, negative publicity, loss of channel partners, customers and sales, loss of competitive advantages over our competitors, increased costs to remedy any problems and otherwise respond to any incident, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, costly litigation, and other liability. In addition, we may incur significant costs and operational consequences of investigating, remediating, eliminating and putting in place additional tools and devices designed to prevent actual or perceived security breaches and other security incidents, as well as the costs to comply with any notification or other legal obligations resulting from any security incidents. Any of these negative outcomes could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources, distract management and technical personnel, adversely impact the market perception of our solutions and subscriptions and end-customer and investor confidence in our company and could seriously harm our business or operating results.
Although we maintain cyber liability insurance coverage that may cover certain liabilities in connection with security breaches and other security incidents, we cannot be certain our insurance coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms (if at all) or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, or denials of coverage, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, results of operations and reputation.
If we fail to adequately protect personal information or other information we process or maintain, our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.
A wide variety of provincial, state, national, and international laws and regulations apply to the collection, use, retention, protection, disclosure, transfer and other processing of personal data and other information. Evolving and changing definitions of personal data and personal information within the European Union ("EU"), the United States, and elsewhere, especially relating to classification of Internet Protocol addresses, machine identification, location data and other information, may limit or inhibit our ability to operate or expand our business, including limiting technology alliance partners that may involve the sharing of data. Data protection and privacy-related laws and regulations are evolving and may result in ever-increasing regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions.
For example, the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), which became fully effective on May 25, 2018, imposes more stringent data protection requirements than previously effective EU data protection law and provides for penalties for noncompliance of up to the greater of €20 million or four percent of worldwide annual revenues. The GDPR requires, among other things, that personal data only be transferred outside of the EU to certain jurisdictions, including the United States, if steps are taken to legitimize those data transfers. We historically relied on the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield programs, and the use of standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission (the “SCCs”), to legitimize these transfers. Both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the SCCs have been subject to legal challenge, however, and on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework that had been in place since 2016, which allowed companies like us to meet certain European legal requirements for the transfer of personal data from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) to the U.S., and imposed additional obligations on companies when relying on the SCCs. This CJEU decision may result in different EEA data protection regulators applying differing standards for the transfer of personal data from the EEA to the United States, and may even require ad hoc verification of measures taken with respect to data flows. The CJEU decision requires us to take additional steps to legitimize any impacted personal data transfers, including in connection with the use of the SCCs, with the full impact of such decision uncertain at this time. The European Commission published new SCCs in June 2021, which are required to be implemented over time. The CJEU decision and related developments could result in increased costs of compliance and limitations on our customers and us. More generally, as a result of the CJEU decision or related developments, we
may find it necessary or desirable to modify our data handling practices and policies and to implement additional contractual and technical safeguards, and our practices relating to cross-border transfers of data or other data handling practices, or those of our customers and vendors, may be challenged. We also may be required to engage in additional contractual negotiations. As a result of these factors, our business, financial condition and operating results may be adversely impacted. Some countries also are considering or have enacted legislation requiring local storage and processing of data that could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our services.
In addition to the GDPR, the European Commission has another draft regulation in the approval process that focuses on a person’s right to conduct a private life. The proposed legislation, known as the Regulation of Privacy and Electronic Communications (“ePrivacy Regulation”), would replace the current ePrivacy Directive. Originally planned to be adopted and implemented at the same time as the GDPR, the ePrivacy Regulation is still being negotiated. On February 10, 2021, the Council of the EU agreed on its version of the draft ePrivacy Regulation. If adopted, the earliest date for entry into force is in 2023, with broad potential impacts on the use of internet-based services and tracking technologies, such as cookies. Aspects of the ePrivacy Regulation remain for negotiation between the European Commission and the Council. We expect to incur additional costs to comply with the requirements of the ePrivacy Regulation as it is finalized for implementation.
Further, in June 2016, the United Kingdom ("U.K.") voted to leave the EU, commonly referred to as “Brexit,” which resulted in the U.K. exiting the EU on January 31, 2020, subject to a transition period ending December 31, 2020. Brexit could lead to further legislative and regulatory changes. The U.K. has implemented legislation that substantially implements the GDPR, with penalties for noncompliance of up to the greater of £17.5 million or four percent of worldwide revenues. Aspects of U.K. data protection laws and regulations, however, including with respect to the role of the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office and regulation of data transfers to and from the U.K. in the medium to longer term, remain unclear. On June 28, 2021, the European Commission announced a decision of “adequacy” concluding that the U.K. ensures an equivalent level of data protection to the GDPR, which provides some relief regarding the legality of continued personal data flows from the European Economic Area to the U.K. Some uncertainty remains, however, as this adequacy determination must be renewed after four years and may be modified or revoked in the interim. We cannot fully predict how U.K. data protection laws or regulations may develop in the medium to longer term nor the effects of divergent laws and guidance regarding how data transfers to and from the U.K. will be regulated. We may find it necessary or appropriate to make additional changes to the way we process data and otherwise conduct our business within, and transmit data to and from, the U.K.
California enacted legislation in 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), that became operative on January 1, 2020. The CCPA requires covered companies to, among other things, provide new disclosures to California consumers, and affords such consumers new abilities to opt-out of certain sales of personal information. Aspects of the CCPA and its interpretation remain unclear. We cannot fully predict the impact of the CCPA on our business or operations, but it may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses in an effort to comply. Additionally, a new privacy law, the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), was approved by California voters in the November 3, 2020 election. The CPRA creates obligations relating to consumer data beginning on January 1, 2022, with implementing regulations expected on or before July 1, 2022, and enforcement beginning July 1, 2023. The CPRA significantly modifies the CCPA, potentially resulting in further uncertainty and requiring us to incur additional costs and expenses. More generally, some observers have noted the CCPA could mark the beginning of a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation in the U.S., as observed with the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, enacted March 2021 and which becomes effective January 1, 2023, and the Colorado Privacy Act, enacted in June 2021 and which takes effect on July 1, 2023.
Even the perception of privacy, data protection or cybersecurity concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation, inhibit adoption of our solutions by current and future customers, or adversely impact our ability to hire and retain workforce talent. If our security measures are or are believed to be inadequate or breached as a result of third-party action, employee negligence, error or malfeasance, social engineering techniques or otherwise, and this results in, or is believed to result in, the disruption of the confidentiality, integrity or availability of our systems or networks or any data we process or maintain, or the loss, destruction or corruption of such data, or our privacy, data protection or cybersecurity practices are or are perceived to be inadequate, we could incur significant liability, we could face a loss of revenues, and our business may suffer and our reputation and competitive position may be damaged. Additionally, our service providers may suffer, or be perceived to suffer, privacy or data security breaches or other incidents that may compromise, or be perceived to compromise, data stored or processed for us that may give rise to any of the foregoing.
We also expect that there will continue to be changes in interpretations of existing laws and regulations, or new proposed laws and regulations concerning privacy, data protection and cybersecurity. We cannot yet determine the impact these laws and regulations or changed interpretations may have on our business, but we anticipate that they could impair our or our customers’ ability to collect, use or disclose information relating to individuals, which could decrease demand for our platform or solutions,
increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and increase our revenue. Moreover, because the interpretation and application of many laws and regulations relating to privacy, data protection and cybersecurity, along with certain industry standards, are uncertain, it is possible that these laws, regulations and standards, or contractual obligations to which we are or may become subject, or to which we may be alleged to be subject, may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing or future data management practices or features of our platform and solutions. Our actual or perceived failure to adequately comply with any such applicable laws, regulations, standards, and other actual or asserted obligations or to protect personal data and other data we process or maintain, could result in regulatory investigations and enforcement actions against us, fines, penalties and other liabilities, imprisonment of company officials and public censure, claims for damages by customers and other affected individuals, required efforts to mitigate or otherwise respond to incidents, litigation, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill (both in relation to existing customers and prospective customers), any of which could have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial performance and business. Even the perception of privacy, data protection or cybersecurity concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation and inhibit adoption of our solutions and subscriptions by current and future customers.
Risks Related to Sales of Our Solutions, Subscriptions and Services
If we are unable to sell additional solutions, subscriptions and services, as well as renewals of our subscriptions and services, to our customers, our future revenue and operating results will be harmed.
Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to expand the deployment of our Mandiant Advantage platform with existing customers by selling them additional solutions, subscriptions and services. This may require increasingly sophisticated and costly sales efforts and may not result in additional sales. In addition, the rate at which our customers purchase additional solutions, subscriptions and services depends on a number of factors, including the perceived need for additional IT security, general economic conditions, and our customers' level of satisfaction with our existing solutions they have previously purchased. If our efforts to sell additional solutions, subscriptions and services to our customers are not successful, our business may suffer.
Further, existing customers that purchase our platform have no contractual obligation to renew their subscriptions after the initial contract period, and given our limited operating history, we may not be able to accurately predict our retention rates. Our customers’ retention rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including the level of their satisfaction with our platform, our customer support, customer budgets and the pricing of our platform compared with the solutions and services offered by our competitors. If our customers renew their subscriptions, they may renew for shorter contract lengths or on other terms that are less economically beneficial to us. We cannot assure you that our customers will renew their subscriptions, and if our customers do not renew their subscriptions or renew them on less favorable terms, our revenue may grow more slowly than expected, not grow at all, or even decline.
Our sales cycles can be long and unpredictable, and our sales efforts require considerable time and expense. As a result, our sales, billings and revenue are difficult to predict and may vary substantially from period to period, which may cause our results of operations to fluctuate significantly.
Our results of operations may fluctuate, in part, because of the resource intensive nature of our sales efforts, the length and variability of our sales cycle and the short-term difficulty in adjusting our operating expenses. Our results of operations depend in part on sales to large organizations. The length of our sales cycle, from identification of the opportunity to deal closure, may vary significantly from customer to customer, with sales to large enterprises typically taking longer to complete. To the extent our competitors develop solutions that our prospective customers view as equivalent to ours, our average sales cycle may increase. Because the length of time required to close a sale varies substantially from customer to customer, it is difficult to predict exactly when, or even if, we will make a sale with a potential customer. As a result, large individual sales have, in some cases, occurred in quarters subsequent to or in advance of those we anticipated, or have not occurred at all. We are generally billing a number of large deals in any quarter, and the loss or delay of one or more of these large transactions in a quarter could impact our results of operations for that quarter and any future quarters for which revenue from that transaction is delayed. As a result, it is difficult for us to forecast our revenue accurately in any quarter based on our internal forecasts of billings. Because a substantial portion of our expenses are relatively fixed in the short term, our results of operations will suffer if our revenue falls below our expectations in a particular quarter, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline.
We rely on revenue from sales of solutions and subscriptions, and because we recognize revenue from these sales over the term of the relevant subscription period, downturns or upturns in sales are not immediately reflected in full in our results of operations.
Revenue from sales of our solutions and subscriptions accounts for a significant portion of our total revenue. New or renewal sales of subscriptions may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including customers’ level of satisfaction with our solutions and subscriptions, the actual or perceived efficacy of our security solutions, the prices of our solutions and subscriptions, the prices of solutions and subscriptions offered by our competitors or reductions in our customers’ spending levels. If our sales of new or renewal subscription and service contracts decline, our revenue and revenue growth rate may decline and adversely affect our business. In addition, we recognize revenue from our subscriptions revenue ratably over the term of the relevant contract period, which is generally between one to five years. As a result, much of the solution, subscription and support revenue we report each quarter is derived from sales in prior quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewal sales in any one quarter will not be fully reflected in revenue in that quarter but will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of significant decreases in the market acceptance of, or demand for, our solutions or subscriptions may not be immediately apparent from our results of operations until future periods. Also, it is difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period, as the majority of our revenue is derived from sales of our solutions, subscriptions and services sold in prior periods. Furthermore, any increases in the average term of our subscriptions would result in a longer revenue recognition period, and could reduce the amount of revenue recognized in each period.
The sales prices of our solutions, subscriptions and services may decrease, which may reduce our gross profits and adversely impact our financial results.
The sales prices for our solutions, subscriptions and services may decline for a variety of reasons, including competitive pricing pressures, discounts, anticipation of the introduction of new solutions by our competitors, or promotional programs offered by us or our competitors. Competition continues to increase in the market segments in which we participate, and we expect competition to further increase in the future, thereby leading to increased pricing pressures. Larger competitors with more diverse solution and service offerings may reduce the price of solutions or subscriptions that compete with ours or may bundle them with other solutions and subscriptions. Additionally, although we price our solutions and subscriptions worldwide in U.S. dollars, currency fluctuations in certain countries and regions may negatively impact actual prices that partners and customers are willing to pay in those countries and regions, or the effective prices we realize in our reporting currency. We cannot assure you that we will be successful in developing and introducing new offerings with enhanced functionality on a timely basis, or that our new subscription offerings, if introduced, will enable us to maintain our gross profits at levels that will allow us to achieve profitability.
If we do not effectively hire, integrate and train our direct sales force, we may be unable to add new customers or increase sales to our existing customers, and our business will be adversely affected.
We continue to be substantially dependent on our direct sales force to obtain new customers and increase sales with existing customers. There is significant competition for sales personnel with the skills and technical knowledge that we require. Our ability to achieve revenue growth will depend, in large part, on our success in recruiting, integrating, training and retaining sufficient numbers of sales personnel to support our growth, particularly in international markets. New hires require significant training and may take significant time before they achieve full productivity. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become productive as quickly as we expect, and we may be unable to hire or retain sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the markets where we do business or plan to do business. If we are unable to hire and train a sufficient number of effective sales personnel, or the sales personnel we hire are not successful in obtaining new customers or increasing sales to our existing customer base, our business will be adversely affected.
If we are unable to increase sales of our solutions to large organizations while mitigating the risks associated with serving such customers, our business, financial position and results of operations may suffer.
Our growth strategy is dependent, in part, upon increasing sales of our solutions to large enterprises and governments. Sales to large customers involve risks that may not be present (or that are present to a lesser extent) with sales to smaller entities. These risks include:
•increased purchasing power and leverage held by large customers in negotiating contractual arrangements with us;
•more stringent or costly requirements imposed upon us in our support service contracts with such customers, including stricter support response times and penalties for any failure to meet support requirements;
•more complicated implementation processes;
•longer sales cycles and the associated risk that substantial time and resources may be spent on a potential customer that ultimately elects not to purchase our platform or purchases less than we hoped;
•closer relationships with, and dependence upon, large technology companies who offer competitive solutions; and
•more pressure for discounts and write-offs.
In addition, because security breaches with respect to larger, high-profile enterprises are likely to be heavily publicized, there is increased reputational risk associated with serving such customers. If we are unable to increase sales of our offerings to large enterprise and government customers while mitigating the risks associated with serving such customers, our business, financial position and results of operations may suffer.
U.S. federal, state and local government sales are subject to a number of challenges and risks that may adversely impact our business.
Sales to U.S. federal, state, and local governmental agencies have accounted for, and may in the future account for, a significant portion of our revenue. Sales to such government entities are subject to the following risks:
•selling to governmental agencies can be highly competitive, expensive and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that such efforts will generate a sale;
•government certification requirements applicable to our solutions may change and, in doing so, restrict our ability to sell into the U.S. federal government sector until we have attained the revised certification;
•government demand and payment for our solutions and services may be impacted by government shutdowns, public sector budgetary cycles, contracting requirements and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our solutions and services;
•we sell our solutions to governmental agencies through our indirect channel partners, and these agencies may have statutory, contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with our distributors and resellers for convenience or due to a default, and any such termination may adversely impact our future results of operations; and
•governments routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government refusing to continue buying our platform, which would adversely impact our revenue and results of operations, or institute fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit were to uncover improper or illegal activities.
Our ability to maintain customer satisfaction depends in part on the quality of our professional service organization and technical and other support services, including the quality of the support provided on our behalf by certain channel partners. Failure to maintain high-quality customer support could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Once our platform is deployed within our customers’ networks, our customers depend on our technical and other support services, as well as the support of our channel partners, to resolve any issues relating to the implementation and maintenance of our platform. If we or our channel partners do not effectively assist our customers in deploying our platform, succeed in helping our customers quickly resolve post-deployment issues, or provide effective ongoing support, our ability to sell additional solutions, subscriptions or services as part of our platform to existing customers would be adversely affected and our reputation with potential customers could be damaged. Many larger organizations have more complex networks and require higher levels of support than smaller customers. If we fail to meet the requirements of our larger customers, it may be more difficult to execute on our strategy of upselling and cross selling with these customers. Additionally, if our channel partners do not effectively provide support to the satisfaction of our customers, we may be required to provide this level of support to those customers, which would require us to hire additional personnel and to invest in additional resources. It can take significant time and resources to recruit, hire, and train qualified technical support employees. We may not be able to hire such resources fast enough to keep up with demand. To the extent that we or our channel partners are unsuccessful in hiring, training, and retaining adequate support resources, our ability and the ability of our channel partners to provide adequate and timely support to our customers will be negatively impacted, and our customers’ satisfaction with our platform will be adversely affected. Additionally, to the extent that we need to rely on our sales engineers to provide post-sales support, our sales productivity will be negatively impacted, which would harm our results of operations.
We may not have visibility into particular transactions affecting our financial position and results of operations.
We may, from time to time, change our pricing models. For example, we may offer some of our solutions and services on a consumption-based pricing model. In such event, we will generally recognize revenue on consumption. Because our customers will have flexibility in the timing of their consumption, we will not have the visibility into the timing of revenue recognition that would be the case under a subscription-based pricing model. There is a risk that customers will consume our solutions and services
more slowly than we expect, and our actual results may differ from our forecasts. If our quarterly results of operations fall below the expectations of investors and securities analysts who follow our stock, the price of our common stock could decline substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class actions.
Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Technology Licensing
Claims by others that we infringe their proprietary technology or other rights could harm our business.
Technology companies frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of patent infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. In addition, patent holding companies seek to monetize patents they have purchased or otherwise obtained. As we face increasing competition and gain an increasingly higher profile, the possibility of intellectual property rights claims against us grows. From time to time, third parties have asserted, and we expect that third parties will continue to assert, claims of infringement of intellectual property rights against us. For example, on December 29, 2017, we executed Confidential Patent License Agreements with Finjan Holdings, Inc. (“Finjan”), whereby we resolved all pending litigation matters. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, we paid Finjan a one-time net cash settlement amount of $12.5 million in December 2017, in exchange for the resolution and settlement of all claims between Mandiant and Finjan and for cross-licenses between the companies of certain issued patents and patent applications. Other security companies have paid amounts to the same plaintiff to license some of the patents asserted against us. Third parties may in the future also assert claims against our customers or channel partners, whom our standard license and other agreements obligate us to indemnify against claims that our solutions infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. Many of our competitors and others may now and in the future have significantly larger and more mature patent portfolios than we have. In addition, future litigation may involve patent holding companies or other patent owners who have no relevant product offerings or revenue and against whom our own patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence or protection. Any claim of intellectual property infringement by a third party, even a claim without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against such claim, could distract our management from our business and could require us to cease use of such intellectual property. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by the discovery process.
Although third parties may offer a license to their technology or other intellectual property, the terms of any offered license may not be acceptable, and the failure to obtain a license or the costs associated with any license could cause our business, financial condition and results of operations to be materially and adversely affected. We may also be subject to additional fees or be required to obtain new licenses if any of our licensors allege that we have not properly paid for such licenses or that we have improperly used the technologies under such licenses. In addition, some licenses may be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology licensed to us. If a third party does not offer us a license to its technology or other intellectual property on reasonable terms, or at all, we could be enjoined from continued use of such intellectual property. As a result, we may be required to develop alternative, non-infringing technology, which could require significant time (during which we could be unable to continue to offer our affected solutions, subscriptions or services), effort, and expense and may ultimately not be successful. Furthermore, a successful claimant could secure a judgment or we may agree to a settlement that prevents us from distributing certain solutions, providing certain subscriptions or performing certain services or that requires us to pay substantial damages, royalties or other fees. Any of these events could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our technology alliance partnerships expose us to a range of business risks and uncertainties that could have a material adverse impact on our business and financial results.
We have entered, and intend to continue to enter, into technology alliance partnerships with third parties to support our future growth plans. Such relationships include technology licensing, joint technology development and integration, research cooperation, co-marketing activities and sell-through arrangements. We face a number of risks relating to our technology alliance partnerships that could prevent us from realizing the desired benefits from such partnerships on a timely basis or at all, which, in turn, could have a negative impact on our business and financial results.
Technology alliance partnerships require significant coordination between the parties involved, particularly if a partner requires that we integrate its solutions with our solutions. This could involve a significant commitment of time and resources by our technical staff and their counterparts within our technology alliance partner. The integration of solutions from different companies may be more difficult than we anticipate, and the risk of integration difficulties, incompatible solutions and undetected programming errors or defects may be higher than the risks normally associated with the introduction of new solutions. It may also be more difficult to market and sell solutions developed through technology alliance partnerships than it would be to market and
sell solutions that we develop on our own. Sales and marketing personnel may require special training, as the new solutions may be more complex than our other solutions.
We invest significant time, money and resources to establish and maintain relationships with our technology alliance partners, but we have no assurance that any particular relationship will continue for any specific period of time. In addition, our technology alliance partners may currently or in the future have offerings that compete with our offerings in certain markets, which may make it difficult to establish long-term or effective relationships with them. Generally, our agreements with technology alliance partners are terminable without cause with no or minimal notice or penalties. If we lose a significant technology alliance partner, we could lose the benefit of our investment of time, money and resources in the relationship. In addition, we could be required to incur significant expenses to develop a new strategic alliance or to determine and implement an alternative plan to pursue the opportunity that we targeted with the former partner.
We may be unable to protect our intellectual property adequately, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We believe that our intellectual property is an essential asset of our business. We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark, database rights, and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions, to establish and protect our intellectual property rights in the United States and abroad. The efforts we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not be sufficient or effective, and our trademarks, copyrights and patents may be held invalid or unenforceable. Any U.S. or other patents issued to us may not be sufficiently broad to protect our proprietary technologies, and given the costs of obtaining patent protection, we may choose not to seek patent protection for certain of our proprietary technologies. We may not be effective in policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and even if we do detect violations, litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights. Any enforcement efforts we undertake, including litigation, could be time-consuming and expensive, could divert management’s attention and may result in a court determining that our intellectual property rights are unenforceable. If we are not successful in cost-effectively protecting our intellectual property rights, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed.
We incorporate technology from third parties into our solutions, and our inability to obtain or maintain rights to the technology could harm our business.
We incorporate technology from third parties into our solutions. We cannot be certain that our suppliers and licensors are not infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties or that the suppliers and licensors have sufficient rights to the technology in all jurisdictions in which we may sell our solutions. Some of our agreements with our suppliers and licensors may be terminated for convenience by them. If we are unable to obtain or maintain rights to any of this technology because of intellectual property infringement claims brought by third parties against our suppliers and licensors or against us, or if we are unable to continue to obtain such technology or enter into new agreements on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to develop and sell solutions, subscriptions and services containing such technology could be severely limited, and our business could be harmed. Additionally, if we are unable to obtain necessary technology from third parties, including certain sole suppliers, we may be forced to acquire or develop alternative technology, which may require significant time, cost and effort and may be of lower quality or performance standards. This would limit and delay our ability to offer new or competitive solutions and increase our costs of development. If alternative technology cannot be obtained or developed, we may not be able to offer certain functionality as part of our solutions, subscriptions and services. As a result, our margins, market share and results of operations could be significantly harmed.
Our solutions and subscriptions contain third-party open source software components, and failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open source software licenses could restrict our ability to sell our solutions and subscriptions.
Our solutions and subscriptions contain software modules licensed to us by third-party authors under “open source” licenses. The use and distribution of open source software may entail greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. Some open source licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the type of open source software we use. If we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public. This would allow our competitors to create similar solutions with lower development effort and time and ultimately could result in a loss of sales for us.
Although we monitor our use of open source software to try to avoid subjecting our solutions and subscriptions to conditions, the terms of many open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in ways that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize solutions and
subscriptions incorporating such software. Moreover, we cannot assure you that our processes for controlling our use of open source software in our solutions and subscriptions will be effective. From time to time, we may face claims from third parties asserting ownership of, or demanding release of, the open source software or derivative works that we developed using such software (which could include our proprietary source code), or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source license. These claims could result in litigation. If we are held to have breached the terms of an open source software license, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties to continue offering our solutions on terms that are not economically feasible, to re-engineer our solutions, to discontinue the sale of our solutions if re-engineering could not be accomplished on a timely or cost-effective basis, or to make generally available, in source code form, our proprietary code, any of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Risks Related to Operations Outside the United States
We generate a significant amount of revenue from sales through resellers, distributors and end-customers outside of the United States, and we are therefore subject to a number of risks associated with international sales and operations.
We have a limited history of marketing, selling, and supporting our platform internationally. As a result, we must hire and train experienced personnel to staff and manage our foreign operations. To the extent that we experience difficulties in recruiting, training, managing, and retaining international employees, particularly managers and other members of our international sales team, we may experience difficulties in sales productivity in, or market penetration of, foreign markets. We also enter into strategic distributor and reseller relationships with companies in certain international markets where we do not have a local presence. If we are not able to maintain successful strategic distributor relationships with our international channel partners or recruit additional channel partners, our future success in these international markets could be limited. Business practices in the international markets that we serve may differ from those in the United States and may require us to include non-standard terms in customer contracts, such as extended payment or warranty terms. To the extent that we enter into customer contracts in the future that include non-standard terms related to payment, warranties, or performance obligations, our results of operations may be adversely impacted.
Additionally, our international sales and operations are subject to a number of risks, including the following:
•greater difficulty in enforcing contracts and managing collections, as well as longer collection periods;
•higher costs of doing business internationally, including costs incurred in establishing and maintaining office space and equipment for our international operations;
•fluctuations in exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and foreign currencies in markets where we do business, such as the British Pound Sterling, which experienced a sharp decline in value compared to the U.S. dollar and other currencies;
•management communication and integration problems resulting from cultural and geographic dispersion;
•risks associated with trade restrictions and foreign legal requirements, including any importation, certification, and localization of our solutions that may be required in foreign countries and any changes in trade relations and restrictions;
•greater risk of unexpected changes in foreign and domestic regulatory practices, tariffs and tax laws and treaties, including regulatory and trade policy changes;
•compliance with anti-bribery laws, including, without limitation, compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, the U.S. Travel Act and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, violations of which could lead to significant fines, penalties and collateral consequences for our Company;
•heightened risk of unfair or corrupt business practices in certain geographies and of improper or fraudulent sales arrangements that may impact financial results and result in restatements of, or irregularities in, financial statements;
•the uncertainty of protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
•foreign exchange controls or tax regulations that might prevent us from repatriating cash earned outside the United States;
•general economic, political and social conditions in these foreign markets, including the perception of doing business with U.S. based companies and changes in regulatory requirements that impact our operating strategies, access to global markets or hiring;
•political and economic instability in some countries, such as those caused by recent U.S. presidential elections and Brexit;
•increased exposure to public health issues such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, and related industry and governmental actions to address these issues; and
•double taxation of our international earnings and potentially adverse tax consequences due to changes in the tax laws of the United States or the foreign jurisdictions in which we operate.
Further, the interpretation and application of international laws and regulations in many cases is uncertain, and our legal and regulatory obligations in foreign jurisdictions are subject to frequent and unexpected changes, including the potential for various regulatory or other governmental bodies to enact new or additional laws or regulations or to issue rulings that invalidate prior laws or regulations.
For example, Brexit could also lead to further legislative and regulatory changes. A Data Protection Act that substantially implements the GDPR has been implemented in the U.K., effective in May 2018 and subject to additional statutory amendments in 2019 to further align such Data Protection Act with the GDPR. It is unclear, however, how U.K. data protection laws or regulations will develop in the medium to longer term, and how data transfers to and from the U.K. will be regulated. In particular, the U.K.’s exit from the EU to effectuate Brexit could require us to make additional changes to the way we conduct our business and transmit data from the EU into the U.K.
These and other factors could harm our ability to generate future international revenue and, consequently, materially impact our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could negatively affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Our sales contracts are denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore our revenue is not subject to foreign currency risk. However, strengthening of the U.S. dollar increases the real cost of our solutions, subscriptions and services to our customers outside of the United States, which could lead to delays in the purchase of our solutions and services and the lengthening of our sales cycle. In addition, we are incurring an increasing portion of our operating expenses outside the United States. These expenses are denominated in foreign currencies and are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
Additionally, Brexit resulted in an adverse impact to currency exchange rates, notably the British Pound Sterling which experienced a sharp decline in value compared to the U.S. dollar and other currencies. A significantly weaker British Pound Sterling compared to the U.S. dollar could have a significantly negative effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
We do not currently hedge against the risks associated with currency fluctuations but may do so in the future.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets.
Our solutions are subject to U.S. export controls, specifically the Export Administration Regulations and regulations enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. We incorporate standard encryption algorithms into many of our solutions, which, along with the underlying technology, may be exported outside of the U.S. only with the required export authorizations, including by license, license exception or other appropriate government authorizations, which may require the filing of an encryption registration and classification request. Additionally, our current or future solutions may be classified under the Commerce Department Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) or as defense articles subject to the United States International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”). Most of our solutions have been classified under the EAR and are generally exportable without needing a specific license, under an EAR exception for encryption software. If a solution, or component of a solution, is classified under the ITAR, or is ineligible for the EAR encryption exception, then those solutions could be exported outside the United States only if we obtain the applicable export license or qualify for a different license exception. In certain contexts, the services we provide might be classified as defense services subject to the ITAR separately from the solutions we provide. Compliance with the EAR, ITAR, and other applicable regulatory requirements regarding the export of our solutions, including new releases of our solutions and/or the performance of services, may create delays in the introduction of our solutions in non-U.S. markets, prevent our customers with non-U.S. operations from deploying our solutions throughout their global systems or, in some cases, prevent the export of our solutions to some countries altogether. Violations of U.S. sanctions or export control regulations can result in significant fines or penalties and possible incarceration for responsible employees and managers. If our channel partners fail to obtain appropriate import, export, or re-export licenses or permits, we may also be adversely affected through reputational harm, as well as other negative consequences, including government investigations and penalties.
In addition, proposed regulations have been released in the United States which may subject additional solutions, technology, and services to control under the EAR. If those regulations go into effect as currently written, we may need to apply for and obtain licenses prior to exporting these items to certain destinations and end-users. This licensing requirement could increase the time
between order and delivery for these items and also could result in us not being able to provide solutions and services to particular customers if any license request is denied, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Also, various countries, in addition to the United States, regulate the import and export of certain cybersecurity, encryption and other solutions, technology and services, including through export and import permit and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our solutions, could limit our customers’ ability to implement our solutions or could limit our ability to provide services to our customers in those countries. Changes in our solutions or changes in export and import regulations may create delays in the introduction of our solutions into international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our solutions globally or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our solutions to certain countries, governments or persons altogether. Any change in export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, governments, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our solutions by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our solutions to, existing or potential customers with international operations. Any decreased use of our solutions or limitation on our ability to export to or sell our solutions in international markets would likely adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Convertible Senior Notes
We are leveraged financially, which could adversely affect our ability to adjust our business to respond to competitive pressures and to obtain sufficient funds to satisfy our future growth, business needs and development plans.
We have substantial existing indebtedness. In June 2015, we issued $460.0 million principal amount of 1.000% Convertible Senior Notes due 2035 (the "Series A Notes") and $460.0 million principal amount of 1.625% Convertible Senior Notes due 2035 (the "Series B Notes" and, together with the Series A Notes, the "2035 Notes"). During the three months ended June 30, 2018, we issued $600.0 million aggregate principal amount of 0.875% Convertible Senior Notes due 2024 (the "2024 Notes" and, together with the 2035 Notes, the "convertible notes") and repurchased approximately $340.2 million aggregate principal amount of the Series A Notes. During the three months ended June 30, 2020, we repurchased approximately $96.4 million aggregate principal amount of the Series A Notes. As a result, as of September 30, 2021, we had approximately $1.1 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible notes outstanding.
The degree to which we are leveraged could have negative consequences, including, but not limited to, the following:
•we may be more vulnerable to economic downturns, less able to withstand competitive pressures and less flexible in responding to changing business and economic conditions;
•our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, general corporate or other purposes may be limited;
•a substantial portion of our cash flows from operations in the future may be required for the payment of the principal amount of our existing indebtedness when it becomes due; and
•we may elect to make cash payments upon any conversion of the convertible notes, which would reduce our cash on hand.
Our ability to meet our payment obligations under our convertible notes depends on our ability to generate significant cash flow in the future. This, to some extent, is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative and regulatory factors as well as other factors that are beyond our control. There can be no assurance that our business will generate cash flow from operations, or that additional capital will be available to us, in an amount sufficient to enable us to meet our debt payment obligations and to fund other liquidity needs. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flow to service our debt obligations, we may need to refinance or restructure our debt, sell assets, reduce or delay capital investments, or seek to raise additional capital. If we were unable to implement one or more of these alternatives, we may be unable to meet our debt payment obligations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or financial condition.
If holders of the 2035 Notes require us to repurchase their notes on any repurchase date, our financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.
Holders of the Series A Notes have the right to require us to repurchase their notes on each of June 1, 2025 and June 1, 2030, and holders of the Series B Notes will have the right to require us to repurchase their notes on each of June 1, 2022, June 1, 2025 and June 1, 2030 at a repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of the notes of the relevant series to be repurchased, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any, to, but excluding, the relevant repurchase date pursuant to the applicable indenture governing such series of notes. If holders require us to repurchase their notes of an applicable series on an applicable repurchase date, our financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.
The conditional conversion feature of each series of convertible notes, if triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.
In the event the conditional conversion feature of a series of convertible notes is triggered, holders of such series of convertible notes will be entitled to convert their convertible notes at any time during specified periods at their option. If one or more holders of such convertible notes elect to convert their convertible notes, unless we elect to satisfy our conversion obligation by delivering solely shares of our common stock (other than paying cash in lieu of delivering any fractional share), we would be required to settle a portion or all of our conversion obligation through the payment of cash, which could adversely affect our liquidity. In addition, even if holders of such series of convertible notes do not elect to convert their convertible notes, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of such series of convertible notes as a current rather than long-term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.
The accounting method for convertible debt securities that may be settled in cash, such as the convertible notes, is subject to changes that could have a material effect on our reported financial results.
The current accounting method for reflecting the convertible notes on our balance sheet, accruing interest expense for the convertible notes and reflecting the shares of our common stock underlying the convertible notes in our reported diluted earnings per share may adversely affect our reported earnings and financial condition. Under current accounting principles, the initial liability carrying amount of the convertible notes is the fair value of a similar debt instrument that does not have a conversion feature, valued using our cost of capital for straight, unconvertible debt.
However, in August 2020, FASB issued ASU No. 2020-06, Accounting for Convertible Instruments and Contracts in an Entity’s Own Equity (ASU 2020-06), eliminating the separate accounting for the debt and equity components as described above. ASU 2020-06 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2021, with early adoption permitted for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2020, and can be adopted on either a fully retrospective or modified retrospective basis. We are currently evaluating the timing, method of adoption and overall impact of this standard on our consolidated financial statements.
When we adopt ASU 2020-06, we expect the elimination of the separate accounting for the convertible notes described above to reduce the interest expense that we expect to recognize for the notes for accounting purposes. In addition, ASU 2020-06 eliminates the use of the treasury stock method for convertible instruments that can be settled in whole or in part with equity, and instead requires application of the “if-converted” method. Among other potential impacts, our adoption of ASU 2020-06 is expected to reduce reported interest expense, increase reported net income, and result in a reclassification of certain conversion feature balance sheet amounts from stockholders’ equity to liabilities as it relates to the convertible notes. Furthermore, if any of the conditions to the convertibility for a series of convertible notes is satisfied, then we may be required under applicable accounting standards to reclassify the liability carrying value of such series of convertible notes as a current, rather than a long-term, liability. This reclassification could be required even if no holders of the applicable series of convertible notes convert their notes and could materially reduce our reported working capital and have a material effect on our reported financial results.
Transactions related to our convertible notes may affect the market price of our common stock.
The conversion of any of our series of convertible notes, if such conversion occurs, will dilute the ownership interests of then-existing stockholders to the extent we deliver shares upon conversion of any of the convertible notes. Any sales in the public market of the common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock. In addition, the existence of the convertible notes may encourage short selling by market participants because any conversion of the convertible notes could be used to satisfy short positions, or anticipated conversion of the convertible notes into shares of our common stock could depress the price of our common stock.
In addition, in connection with our issuance of the 2024 Notes, we entered into capped call transactions (the “capped call transactions”) with certain financial institutions (the “option counterparties”). The capped call transactions are expected generally to reduce the potential dilution to our common stock upon any conversion of the 2024 Notes and/or offset any cash payments we are required to make in excess of the principal amount of such 2024 Notes converted, as the case may be, with such reduction and/or offset subject to a cap. From time to time, the option counterparties or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivative transactions with respect to our common stock and/or purchasing or selling our common stock or other securities of ours in secondary market transactions prior to the maturity of the 2024 Notes. This activity could cause a decrease in the market price of our common stock.
We are subject to counterparty risk with respect to the capped call transactions.
The option counterparties to our capped call transactions are financial institutions, and we will be subject to the risk that one or more of the counterparties may default or otherwise fail to perform, or may exercise certain rights to terminate, their obligations under the capped call transactions. Our exposure to the credit risk of the option counterparties will not be secured by any collateral. Adverse global economic conditions may result in the actual or perceived failure or financial difficulties for financial institutions, including one or more of our option counterparties. If an option counterparty becomes subject to insolvency proceedings, we will become an unsecured creditor in those proceedings with a claim equal to our exposure at that time under our transactions with that option counterparty. Our exposure will depend on many factors but, generally, our exposure will increase if the market price or the volatility of our common stock increases. In addition, upon a default or other failure to perform, or a termination of obligations, by an option counterparty, we may suffer adverse tax consequences and more dilution than we currently anticipate with respect to our common stock. We can provide no assurances as to the financial stability or viability of the option counterparties.
Risks Related to Our Series A Convertible Preferred Stock
The holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock may exercise influence over us, including through their ability to designate a member of our board of directors.
The holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock are generally entitled to vote with the holders of the shares of common stock on all matters submitted for a vote of holders of shares of common stock (voting together with the holders of shares of common stock as one class) on an as-converted basis, subject to certain Nasdaq voting limitations, if applicable. Additionally, the consent of the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock is required for so long as any shares of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock remain outstanding for (i) amendments to our organizational documents that have an adverse effect on the holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock and (ii) issuances by us of securities that are senior to, or equal in priority with, the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock. In addition, for so long as 25% of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock issued in connection with the Securities Purchase Agreement with BTO Delta Holdings DE L.P., an investment vehicle of funds affiliated with The Blackstone Group Inc. (“Blackstone”), and the Securities Purchase Agreement with ClearSky Security Fund I LLC and ClearSky Power & Technology Fund II LLC (together, the “Series A Securities Financing Agreements”) remains outstanding, consent of the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock will be required for (A) any change to the size of our board of directors, (B) any voluntary dissolution, liquidation, bankruptcy, winding up or deregistration or delisting, and (C) incurrence by us of net debt in excess of $350,000,000.
Additionally, pursuant to the applicable Series A Securities Financing Agreement, Blackstone has the right to nominate for election one member to our board of directors for so long as Blackstone holds 65% of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock. The director designated by Blackstone is entitled to serve on committees of our board of directors, subject to applicable law and Nasdaq rules. Notwithstanding the fact that all directors will be subject to fiduciary duties to us and to applicable law, the interests of the director designated by Blackstone may differ from the interests of our security holders as a whole or of our other directors.
As a result, the holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock have the ability to influence the outcome of certain matters affecting our governance and capitalization. The sponsors of the holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock are in the business of making or advising on investments in companies, including businesses that may directly or indirectly compete with certain portions of our business, and they may have interests that diverge from, or even conflict with, those of our other shareholders. They may also pursue acquisition opportunities that may be complementary to our business, and, as a result, those acquisition opportunities may not be available to us. Our obligations to the holders of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock could also limit our ability to obtain additional financing or increase our borrowing costs, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition.
Our Series A Convertible Preferred Stock has rights, preferences, and privileges that are not held by, and are preferential to, the rights of holders of our common stock, which could adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition.
The holders have the right under the Series A Certificate of Designation to receive a liquidation preference entitling them to be paid an amount per share equal to the greater of (i) $1,000 per share, plus all accrued and unpaid dividends and (ii) the amount that the holder of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock would have been entitled to receive at such time if the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock were converted into common stock. In addition, the holders are entitled to dividends on the original purchase price of $1,000 per share at a rate of 4.5% per annum, that (i) for the first three years after December 11, 2020, or the Series A closing date, will be paid in-kind, and (ii) after the third anniversary of the Series A closing date, will, at our election either be paid in cash, or, if not, will accrue and accumulate, in each case, accruing daily and paid quarterly in arrears. The holders are also entitled to participate in dividends declared or paid on the common stock on an as-converted basis.
There may be future sales or other dilution of our equity, which may adversely affect the market price of our common stock or the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock and may negatively impact the holders’ investment.
Except in certain circumstances, we are not restricted from issuing additional shares of common stock or preferred stock, including any securities that are convertible into or exchangeable for, or that represent the right to receive, common stock or preferred stock or any substantially similar securities. The market price of our common stock or Series A Convertible Preferred Stock could decline as a result of sales of a large number of shares of common stock or Series A Convertible Preferred Stock or similar securities in the market or the perception that such sales could occur. For example, if we issue preferred stock in the future that has a preference over our common stock with respect to the payment of dividends or upon our liquidation, dissolution or winding-up, or if we issue preferred stock with voting rights that dilute the voting power of our common stock, the rights of holders of our common stock or the market price of our common stock could be adversely affected.
In addition, each share of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock will initially be convertible at the option of the holder thereof into shares of our common stock. The conversion of some or all of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock will dilute the ownership interest of our existing common stockholders. Any sales in the public market of our common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of the outstanding shares of our common stock and Series A Convertible Preferred Stock. In addition, the existence of our Series A Convertible Preferred Stock may encourage short selling or arbitrage trading activity by market participants because the conversion of our Series A Convertible Preferred Stock could depress the price of our equity securities. As noted above, a decline in the market price of the common stock may negatively impact the market price for the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock, to some extent, depends on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us should downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our shares, industry sector or solutions, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
We may fail to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations about our business and future operating results, which would cause our stock price to decline.
We have provided and may continue to provide guidance about our business and future operating results. In developing this guidance, our management must make certain assumptions and judgments about our future performance. Furthermore, analysts and investors may develop and publish their own projections of our business, which may form a consensus about our future performance. Our business results may vary significantly from such guidance or that consensus due to a number of factors, many of which are outside of our control, and which could adversely affect our operations and operating results. Such factors may include the possibility that interpretation, industry practice, and accounting guidance may continue to evolve during the early stages of adoption of Accounting Standard Update 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606). Furthermore, if we make downward revisions of our previously announced guidance, or if our publicly announced guidance of future operating results fails to meet expectations of securities analysts, investors or other interested parties, the price of our common stock would decline.
The price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile, and the value of your investment could decline.
The trading price of our common stock has been volatile since our initial public offering, and is likely to continue to be volatile. The trading price of our common stock may fluctuate widely in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include:
•whether our results of operations, and in particular, our revenue growth rates, meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors;
•actual or anticipated changes in the expectations of investors or securities analysts, whether as a result of our forward-looking statements, our failure to meet such expectation or otherwise;
•announcements of new solutions, services or technologies, commercial relationships, acquisitions or other events by us or our competitors;
•changes in how customers perceive the effectiveness of our platform in protecting against advanced cyber attacks or other reputational harm;
•publicity concerning cyber attacks in general or high profile cyber attacks against specific organizations;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
•significant volatility in the market price and trading volume of technology and/or growth companies in general and of companies in the IT security industry in particular;
•fluctuations in the trading volume of our shares or the size of our public float;
•actual or anticipated changes or fluctuations in our results of operations;
•litigation involving us, our industry, or both;
•regulatory developments in the United States, foreign countries or both;
•general economic conditions and trends;
•natural disasters or other catastrophic events;
•public health crises and related measures to protect the public health, such as the COVID-19 pandemic;
•actual or perceived security breaches or incidents that we or our service providers may suffer;
•sales of large blocks of our common stock or substantial future sales by our directors, executive officers, employees and significant stockholders; and
•departures of key personnel.
In addition, if the market for technology stocks or the stock market in general experiences a loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, results of operations or financial condition. The trading price of our common stock might also decline in reaction to events that affect other companies in our industry even if these events do not directly affect us. In the past, following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been brought against that company. The price of our common stock has been highly volatile since our IPO in September 2013, and several lawsuits alleging violations of securities laws were filed against us and certain of our current and former directors and executive officers in 2014 and 2015. Any securities litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources from our business. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Sales of substantial amounts of our common stock in the public markets, or sales of our common stock by our executive officers and directors under Rule 10b5-1 plans, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock and may make it more difficult for you to sell your common stock at a time and price that you deem appropriate. In addition, certain of our executive officers and directors have adopted, and other executive officers and directors may in the future adopt, written plans, known as “Rule 10b5-1 Plans,” under which they have contracted, or may in the future contract, with a broker to sell shares of our common stock on a periodic basis to diversify their assets and investments. Sales made by our executive officers and directors pursuant to Rule 10b5-1, regardless of the amount of such sales, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
The issuance of additional stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our stock incentive plans, conversion of our convertible notes, conversion of the Series A Convertible Preferred Stock or otherwise will dilute all other stockholders.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue up to 1,000,000,000 shares of common stock and up to 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock with such rights and preferences as may be determined by our board of directors. Subject to compliance with applicable rules and regulations, we may issue shares of common stock or securities convertible into our common stock from time to time in connection with a financing, acquisition, investment, our stock incentive plans, the conversion of our convertible notes or otherwise. For example, in October 2017, we issued 259,425 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of The Email Laundry; in January 2018, we issued 1,016,334 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of X15; in May 2019, we issued 8,404,609 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of Verodin, in November 2020, we issued 4,931,862 shares of common stock in connection with our acquisition of Respond Software. In addition, we issued $920.0 million aggregate principal amount of 2035 Notes, of which approximately $483.4 million aggregate principal remains outstanding, and we issued $600.0 million aggregate principal amount of the 2024 Notes during the three months ended June 30, 2018. In December 2020, we issued 400,000 shares of Series A Convertible
Preferred Stock. Any future issuances could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and cause the trading price of our common stock to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any dividends on our common stock. We intend to retain any earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the future. As a result, you may only receive a return on your investment in our common stock if the market price of our common stock increases.
Our charter documents and Delaware law, as well as certain provisions of our convertible notes, could discourage takeover attempts and lead to management entrenchment, which could also reduce the market price of our common stock.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of us. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to elect directors who are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or take other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. These provisions include:
•a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors;
•the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquiror;
•the exclusive right of our board of directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
•a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
•the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by our board of directors, the chairperson of our board of directors, our Chief Executive Officer or our President (in the absence of a Chief Executive Officer), which could delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
•the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all of the then outstanding shares of the voting stock, voting together as a single class, to amend the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation relating to the management of our business (including our classified board structure) or certain provisions of our amended and restated bylaws, which may inhibit the ability of an acquiror to effect such amendments to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt;
•the ability of our board of directors to amend the bylaws, which may allow our board of directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquiror to amend the bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
•advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquiror from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquiror’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a specified period of time. Additionally, certain provisions of our convertible notes could make it more difficult or more expensive for a third party to acquire us. The application of Section 203 or certain provisions of our convertible notes also could have the effect of discouraging, delaying or preventing a transaction involving a change in control of us. Any of these provisions could, under certain circumstances, depress the market price of our common stock.
We cannot guarantee that our stock repurchase program will be fully implemented or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value.
In June 2021, our board of directors approved a stock repurchase program for the repurchase of up to $500 million of the currently outstanding shares of our common stock. As of September 30, 2021, approximately $400 million remained available under the stock repurchase program. The repurchase program has no termination date and may be suspended for periods, amended or discontinued at any time. We are not obligated to repurchase a specified number or dollar value of shares. Share repurchases under the program will be made from time to time in private transactions or open market purchases, as permitted by securities laws and other legal requirements. There can be no guarantee around the timing of our share repurchases, or that the volume of such repurchases will increase. The stock repurchase program could affect the price of our common stock, increase volatility, diminish our cash reserves, and even if fully implemented may not enhance long-term stockholder value.
Risks Related to Potential Catastrophic Events
The global COVID-19 pandemic, and government imposed COVID-19 vaccination mandates or testing requirements, could harm our business and results of operations.
This COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread across the globe and is impacting worldwide economic activity and financial markets. In light of the uncertain and rapidly evolving situation relating to the spread of COVID-19, including the occurrence of breakthrough cases and COVID-19 variants, we have taken precautionary measures intended to minimize the risk of the virus to our employees, our customers, and the communities in which we operate, which could negatively impact our business. Although we continue to monitor the situation and may adjust our current policies as more information and public health guidance become available, precautionary measures that have been adopted could negatively affect our customer success efforts, sales and marketing efforts, delay and lengthen our sales cycles, or create operational or other challenges, any of which could harm our business and results of operations. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic may disrupt the operations of our customers and partners for an indefinite period of time, including as a result of travel restrictions and/or business shutdowns, all of which could negatively impact our business and results of operations, including cash flows. More generally, the COVID-19 pandemic could adversely affect economies and financial markets globally, potentially leading to an economic downturn, which could decrease technology spending and adversely affect demand for our offerings and harm our business and results of operations. It is not possible at this time to estimate the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic could have on our business, as the impact will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted.
In addition, on September 9, 2021, President Biden directed the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (the “ETS”) requiring that all employers with at least 100 employees ensure that their U.S. employees are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by January 4, 2022 or obtain a negative COVID-19 test at least once a week. The ETS was issued on November 4, 2021. As a company with more than 100 U.S. employees, we would be required to mandate COVID-19 vaccination of our U.S. workforce or require our unvaccinated U.S. employees to be tested on a weekly basis. Although this ETS takes effect immediately, it also serves as a proposal under Section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act for a final standard. It remains unclear, among other things, if the final OSHA standard will apply to all U.S. employees or only to U.S. employees who work in an office, and how compliance will be documented. President Biden also issued an Executive Order requiring certain COVID-19 precautions for U.S. government contractors and their subcontractors, which would include us, including mandatory employee vaccination (subject to medical and religious exemptions) (the “Executive Order”). We are evaluating the ETS and taking steps to comply with the Executive Order. Our preparation and implementation of these requirements could be difficult, costly, and potentially result in employee attrition, including attrition of key employees, disruptions in workforce performance, and difficulty securing future labor needs, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism or armed conflicts.
Natural disasters or other catastrophic events, including earthquakes, fires, floods, significant power outages, telecommunications failures, outbreak of pandemic or contagious diseases (including, but not limited to, the current COVID-19 pandemic) and cyber attacks, may cause damage or disruption to our operations, international commerce and the global economy, and thus could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Our corporate headquarters is located in California, a region known for seismic activity. Despite any precautions we may take, the occurrence of a natural disaster or other unanticipated problems at our facilities or the facilities of our public cloud providers could result in disruptions, outages, and other performance and quality problems. Customer data could be lost, significant recovery time could be required to resume operations and our financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected in the event of a natural disaster or other catastrophic event. In addition, computer malware, viruses and computer hacking, fraudulent use attempts, and phishing attacks have become more prevalent in our industry, and our internal systems may be victimized by such attacks.
Although we maintain incident management and disaster response plans, in the event of a major disruption caused by a natural disaster or man-made problem, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our development activities, lengthy interruptions in service, breaches of data security and loss of critical data, and our insurance may not cover such events or may be insufficient to compensate us for the potentially significant losses we may incur. Furthermore, acts of terrorism, armed conflicts and other geo-political unrest could cause disruptions in our business or the business of our public cloud providers, partners, or customers or the economy as a whole. Any disruption in the business of our public cloud providers, partners or end-customers that impacts sales could have a significant adverse impact on our financial results. All of the aforementioned risks may be further increased if the disaster recovery plans for us and our public cloud providers prove to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above should result in delays or cancellations of customer orders or the loss of customers, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.
General Risk Factors
Fluctuating economic conditions make it difficult to predict revenue for a particular period, and a shortfall in revenue may harm our business and operating results.
Our revenue depends significantly on general economic conditions and the demand for solutions and services in the IT security market. Economic weakness, customer financial difficulties, and constrained spending on IT security may result in decreased revenue and earnings.
In addition, concerns regarding the effects of Brexit, uncertainties related to changes in public policies such as domestic and international regulations, taxes, or international trade agreements, international trade disputes, government shutdowns, geopolitical turmoil and other disruptions to global and regional economies and markets in many parts of the world, have and may continue to put pressure on global economic conditions and overall spending on IT security. General economic weakness may also lead to longer collection cycles for payments due from our customers, an increase in customer bad debt, restructuring initiatives and associated expenses, and impairment of investments. Furthermore, the continued uncertainty in worldwide credit markets, including the sovereign debt situation in certain countries in the EU may adversely impact the ability of our customers to adequately fund their expected capital expenditures, which could lead to delays or cancellations of planned purchases of our platform.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant uncertainty in the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic and health measures taken by governments and private industry in response to the pandemic, including stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions, have had significant negative effects on the economy. Continued uncertainty about the pandemic, associated economic consequences, and potential relief measures may have a long-term adverse effect on the economy, our customers, partners, suppliers, and our business.
Uncertainty about future economic conditions also makes it difficult to forecast operating results and to make decisions about future investments. Future or continued economic weakness for us or our customers, failure of our customers and markets to recover from such weakness, customer financial difficulties, and reductions in spending on IT security could have a material adverse effect on demand for our solutions, subscriptions and services and consequently on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could fall below our publicly announced guidance or the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section entitled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. In general, if our estimates, judgments or assumptions related to our critical accounting policies change or if actual circumstances differ from our estimates, judgments or assumptions, our results of operations may be adversely affected and could fall below our publicly announced guidance or the expectations of securities analysts and investors, which may result in a decline in our stock price. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses and related disclosures.
Our ability to use our net operating losses to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
In general, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the "Code"), a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre-change net operating losses, or NOLs, to offset future taxable income. Our existing NOLs may be subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code and adversely affect our ability to utilize our NOLs in the future. Furthermore, our ability to utilize NOLs of companies that we may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. There is also a risk that due to regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. For example, the Tax Act, as modified by the CARES Act, changed certain limitations on our ability to use our federal NOLs, and California recently enacted legislation limiting our ability to use our state NOLs for taxable years 2020, 2021, and 2022. For these reasons, we may not be able to utilize a material portion of the NOLs reflected on our balance sheet, even if we attain profitability.
The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.
As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), the listing requirements of Nasdaq and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations has increased and will continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs, has made and will continue to make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly, and has increased and will continue to increase demand on our systems and resources. Among other things, the Exchange Act requires that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and results of operations and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business and results of operations. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire even more employees in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses.
We are subject to the independent auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("Section 404"), enhanced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. While we were able to determine in our management's report for fiscal 2020 that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, as well as provide an unqualified attestation report from our independent registered public accounting firm to that effect, we have and will continue to consume management resources and incur significant expenses for Section 404 compliance on an ongoing basis. In the event that our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, or independent registered public accounting firm determines in the future that our internal control over financial reporting is not effective as defined under Section 404, we could be subject to one or more investigations or enforcement actions by state or federal regulatory agencies, stockholder lawsuits or other adverse actions requiring us to incur defense costs, pay fines, settlements or judgments and causing investor perceptions to be adversely affected and potentially resulting in a decline in the market price of our common stock.
In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs, and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations, and standards, and this investment will increase our general and administrative expense and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations, and standards are unsuccessful, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.
We also expect that these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain and maintain director and officer liability insurance, and in the future, we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified executive officers and members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee.
In addition, as a result of our disclosure obligations as a public company, we have reduced strategic flexibility and are under pressure to focus on short-term results, which may adversely impact our ability to achieve long-term profitability.
We are obligated to maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting. We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or this internal control may not be determined to be effective, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our common stock.
We are required, pursuant to the Exchange Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting, as well as a statement that our auditors have issued an attestation report on our internal controls.
While we were able to determine in our management's report for fiscal 2020 that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, as well as provide an unqualified attestation report from our independent registered public accounting firm to that effect, we may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing, and any required remediation in a timely fashion or our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in the future. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting that we are unable to remediate before the end of the same fiscal year in which the material weakness is identified, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls or determine we have a material weakness in our internal controls, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which would cause the price of our common stock to decline.
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