Apple's sales in China are not going well. They apparently did a mass shipment of iphones to America before the exemption date.
Happy Easter all. |
It is quite obvious that IQE technology is not poised to be well placed in the market.
Too expensive, few niche applications.
IQE did not live up to the expectations. Worst part, it wont survive without investor pouring money in or government funding. Un-investible for now. I am glad I had a small position only and managed to get out at 30p. |
Guild, on balance I think there is more likelihood of lower sales of gadgets and therefore more inventory build up than opportunity to increase sales. I would be VERY pleasantly surprised if 2025FY was ahead of 2024 numbers, but hey surely at some point us investors deserve something half decent out of IQE so who knows?!
I believe they were expecting the GaN trend to kick in for ‘25 but I don’t currently see any evidence of this happening (for IQE at least). |
In some respects IQE figures for 2024 were already below what people expected. Dropped from est 160m to barely 118m. Could we really see customers like Apple further reduce orders? Has Trump created a global recession? Or will something good come from these trade deals. IQE is more than ready to increase production in US, UK or Asia if needed. There are opportunities here but I think Crosswire is right about the risks ahead.
The next TU will either be with the results or June/July. A closing statement is probably the best news here you could expect. Meaning revenue as expected. I hope they take a month or so to take stock instead of doing a panic TU which causing the share price to drop further. |
Do any of the US restrictions on chips to China open up any opportunities for IQE? |
“No news on the results. Easter week seems really unlikely. So many people will be on holiday. Funds too. They would likely want to do a presentation too.”
I would imagine it will be into May at least as IQE would update market as to the date, which hasn’t happened. 2022 results were 17th May. |
Depressing but as you point out we would be extremely naive to think IQE won’t be affected. |
 Sadly a lot has happened since the TU and it’s hard to believe it won’t affect IQEs 2025 earnings, given IQEs past we would be extremely naive to think otherwise. The market is clearly expecting a further earnings hit with our 9p share price and pathetic £90m mc.
I expect no growth at the very best in 2025 and it’s how IQE navigates this period via the strategic review to get into shape to resume growth for 2026 that interests me. I feel fairly sure they will need to raise more money somehow, and the favourite was probably the Taiwan sale because I don’t think the market would tolerate another dilutive “raise”. As we know this will be in a much less favourable environment than before Trumps tariff nonsense which is yet another bump in the road that was unexpected at the TU and it wouldn’t surprise me if Taiwan sale is postponed for now.
Severe but plausible downside case was outlined in the last results and that seems the likely scenario for this year, but IQE was confident it could pass such a test, let’s hope it’s not even worse than that in reality! IQE are going to need their large shareholders to support them further still through this tough period.
Just to add to the joy the Nasdaq futures are down heavily as Trump has restricted Nvidias AI exports which is said to be a $5.5b hit and ASML missed their analyst projections by $1b and ASML's CEO, said tariffs are "creating a new uncertainty" for both the economy and "our potential market demands."
In other words chaos but it is what it is. |
The Jan TU for 2024 seem quite upbeat under underlying ebitda. 2.5m above what market expected. We have not heard any numbers for 2025. Judging by Lombards positivity you would expect 2025 to be as expected unless were otherwise told.
I doubt the Chinese will suddenly switch to IQE as tooling can take several months. Unless IQE has a product they previously bought. IQE can produce in the US and UK too. I don't believe the US are taxing semi conductor parts anyway.
No news on the results. Easter week seems really unlikely. So many people will be on holiday. Funds too. They would likely want to do a presentation too. |
Esp of the uk sort a deal out with the turnip
D |
LateralThinker - "a well connected sales person/team" within IQE?
Surely that (or the lack of it) has been their no. 1 problem.
We can but hope I guess. |
It may end up being a benefit to IQE that some of the Chinese epitaxial wafer suppliers are being restricted from selling into the US.
Hopefully somewhere within IQE there is a well connected sales person/team that can use the current situation to their advantage. |
if there is really a big energy consumption reduction with compound semi then data centres are a good market. Makes me wonder whether pushing bits about is more important than food production as Data centres seem to be on a track for massive energy eating. |
Continued selling is worrying.
9 sell trades over 30k already inc one 190k. Could this realistically go lower than 8p, even if they update market that 2025 has zero growth over 24? |
Unfortunately, the one thing he seemingly overlooks is that it takes YEARS to onshore production to any scale.
And he hasn’t got years.
In the meantime, flip-flopping tariffs simply introduce extra costs, killing investor confidence, boosting inflation & increasing the price of your debt financing.
With the US midterms in Nov 2026, if he doesn’t permanently change course well before then, the electorate will be suffering immense pain. And will likely vote with their feet. |
I think if there is one thing we can be sure about it’s that there will be plenty of twists and turns with Trump and tariffs and never discount anything. He will want to bring back “smart phone” production to the US and so there will be a price to be paid at some point to force that to happen. |
Since then Trump has changed again, crazy |
This news (yet another Trump u-turn) will boost IQE’s opening share price on Monday:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20xn626y81o.amp |
 This is a more in depth description than the release I read mentioning an order from IQE throughout 2025 (albeit not large)
Quintessent and IQE Establish Quantum Dot Epitaxial Wafer Supply Chain for AI Optical Interconnects
January 23, 2025, 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Quintessent Inc., a pioneer in quantum dot laser technology and heterogeneous silicon photonics, and IQE plc, the leading global supplier of advanced epitaxial wafer products and services, have partnered together to establish the world’s first large-scale quantum dot laser and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) epitaxial wafer supply chain. This collaboration, supported by purchase order commitments from Quintessent, will see IQE deliver production quantities of epitaxial wafers to Quintessent throughout 2025.
The ever-growing demand for larger parameter models for AI training and inferencing necessitates the interconnectedness of disaggregated compute and memory resources with high bandwidth, low latency, low energy consumption and high reliability, which can only be met with advanced optical interconnects. The laser source within the optical interconnect is a major driver of all these performance metrics, but conventional laser technology and the associated III-V supply chain falls short of AI’s future demands. Reliability of the laser is especially crucial and is perceived to be a limiting factor in scaling optical interconnects for future AI “factories.221; The use of quantum dot material provides a foundational breakthrough for laser and SOA technology resulting in longer lifetimes for enhanced reliability, wider operating temperatures, higher wall plug efficiency, lower noise, and higher immunity to back reflections.
The supply of high quality and high-volume quantum dot epitaxial wafers for laser sources and SOAs have been limited until recent breakthroughs were achieved by Quintessent and IQE, which have been in the making for the past decade, including research that was spun out of John Bower’s laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Transitioning the GaAs based quantum dot research to high volume production has resulted in highly optimized and high performing gain material on 6-inch diameter epitaxial wafers that can produce several hundreds of millions of edge-emitting lasers and SOAs per year.
“The performance, cost, and reliability advantages that quantum dot-based lasers and amplifiers enable over their quantum well counterparts are exactly what our customers are demanding to address the soaring need for optical connectivity in AI driven compute,” said Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder of Quintessent. “Through our partnership with IQE, we have brought this transformative technology to scale, positioning us to be the leader in delivering solutions leveraging quantum dot laser and SOA technology.”
“IQE is very pleased to have received this commitment from Quintessent,” said Mark Furlong, Chief Revenue Officer of IQE. “Our long-term partnership on commercial products and DoD programs has yielded QDL wafers with excellent reproducibility and lasing performance. In addition to expertise in volume manufacturing of epitaxial wafers, our partnership with Quintessent demonstrates IQE's strong track record in scaling the manufacturing readiness of new product into volume production.”
About Quintessent Inc.:
Quintessent is solving the foundational bottlenecks limiting the scalability and reliability of optical connectivity required by next-generation AI and computing infrastructure. Leveraging multiple innovations that span high-performance quantum dot materials, photonic integrated circuit design, and system-optimized link architecture, Quintessent’s technology slashes power consumption and packaging complexity while achieving multiplicative increases in both bandwidth density and reliability – unlocking the massive scaling needed for future AI applications.
Quintessent is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.
To learn more about Quintessent, please visit www.quintessent.com or contact info@quintessent.com
About IQE plc:
IQE is the leading global supplier of advanced compound semiconductor wafers and materials solutions that enable a diverse range of applications across handset devices, global telecoms infrastructure, connected devices, and 3D sensing. As a scaled global epitaxy wafer manufacturer, IQE is uniquely positioned in this market which has high barriers to entry. IQE supplies the whole market and is agnostic to the winners and losers at chip and OEM level. By leveraging the Group’s intellectual property portfolio including know-how and patents, it produces epitaxy wafers of superior quality, yield and unit economics.
IQE is headquartered in Cardiff UK, with c. 670 employees across nine manufacturing locations in the UK, US, Taiwan and Singapore, and is listed on the AIM Stock Exchange in London.
To learn more about IQE, please visit hxxp://iqep.com
View source version on businesswire.com: hxxps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250123778441/en/
Contacts
Steven Estrella
Director of Business Development
info@quintessent.com |
At this stage i would say huge risks to invest even at these prices. It's unclear if IQE will be forced to do a TU when the tariff situation becomes more clear. Will China and USA make a deal? I suspect China may not be that bothered and just sell the story to it's people about how dealing with the west ends up.
The IPO price right now might be much lower too. Least Artisan took their shares.
If the results were next week we would of known by now. So I stand by end of April or mid May. If the CEO is on holiday that might delay it? |
As someone else mentioned there must be conversations internally about taking the company private and off the listed market. This is something of a nadir right now.
What happens to our shares in such a scenario?
Crosswires you are insane to sink another £20k in.
Guildedge, yes IQE have a short term loan for that amount and it can be extended if agreed for a further 6 months. Essentially IQE would need a large raise or selling Taiwan (even if market not the best to do so in) to be able to pay that back unless of course the shares are above 15p which currently looks hugely unlikely.
Essentially IQE is valued where it is because it’s running out of viable options because currently it only makes large losses. |
So the T&C. Will IQE be left with a large bill to pay in 12 months if Lombard don't accept the shares?
Conversion
The Noteholders shall have the right to convert some or all of the principal into ordinary shares at a conversion price of 15 pence per share (the "Conversion Price") at any time prior to maturity of the Loan Notes, and the Company will have the same right provided IQE's daily volume weighted average price of the ordinary shares over both (i) the period of three months; and (ii) the period of seven trading days prior to the date of service of notice of Conversion by the Company exceeds the daily VWAP on the date of issuance of the Loan Notes by more than 33%.
In addition if it is the Company serving notice of Conversion, the Noteholders may also elect not to proceed to Conversion for any or all of their Loan Notes and instead be cash-settled. In such circumstances, the Company shall pay the Noteholder:
· the nominal value of the Loan Notes, plus
· a redemption premium equal to the amount by which the Conversion Price is exceeded by the highest daily VWAP of the Company's ordinary shares over the period of seven trading days prior to the notice of Conversion, multiplied by
· the number of the Company's ordinary shares that the Noteholder would have received had it proceeded with Conversion.
In the event that the Company redeems the Loan Notes without the Noteholders electing for Conversion or for cash settlement as above, the Company shall issue the Warrants to the Noteholders. The Warrants will allow the Noteholders to subscribe at a price of 15 pence per ordinary share for such number of the Company's shares as would, based on a subscription price of 15 pence, be equal in value to the amount that the Noteholders would have received on redemption of the Loan Notes. The Warrants will lapse and cease to be exercisable if they are not exercised prior to the third anniversary of the date on which the Loan Notes are issued.
Adjustments
For so long as the Loan Notes remain in issue, the Loan Notes will be subject to adjustment should IQE undertake certain actions that would result in a dilution of the Loan Notes if no adjustment took place.
Such actions comprise (i) any allotment or issue of equity securities by IQE; (ii) any cancellation, purchase or redemption, reduction or repayment of equity securities by IQE; and (iii) any sub-division, consolidation or reclassification of IQE's ordinary shares by IQE.
The number of and / or the Conversion Price for IQE's ordinary shares to be converted as part of any such adjustment shall be determined and certified by IQE's professional advisors or auditors so that the Noteholders will be entitled to receive the same percentage of the issued share capital of IQE carrying the same proportion of votes exercisable at a general meeting of IQE shareholders and the same entitlement to participate in distributions of IQE, as would have been the case had the Loan Notes not been diluted. |
Lombard was confident of 15p value. Unless IQE are holding back on us? Is the whole Trump saga worth over a third of the value of IQE? Or was 15p pie in the sky?
Has Lombard accepted the shares instead of a loan?I think currently still a loan. I think the company has a loan note for 12 months. If the share price is 8-9p in 12 months what happens? I can't believe Lombard would convert for a 30-40% loss at 15p a share. |
Yes Sally, there is no real appetite to buy IQE shares even at a market cap of just over £90m!
I’d love to put a positive spin on it, I probably will fill my ISA allowance pot to lower my overall average but it’s hard for me to find the words to describe what has happened to IQE because most of it isn’t market related but of their own doing really. I have said it before but really now I am gambling, almost akin to tossing a coin and if it lands tails I lose it all. At least I am not going into it “blind”!
IQE need to ace this strategic review and start getting some major GaN contracts considering for how many years they told us they were ahead of the curve in this area. In effect they need to start out focusing on cutting anything loss making, thin the workforce and build back up slowly over the next 5-10 years.
I hope many of ask some tough questions at the next Q&A and specifically over the whole Lemos nightmare. |
524,000 sell at 9p dead. Crikey |
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