Annual Report 2020 About Vishay Intertechnology
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VISHAY INTERTECHNOLOGY, INC. ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ABOUT VISHAY INTERTECHNOLOGY For almost six decades we’ve been building The DNA of tech.™ The Vishay journey began with one man, Dr. Felix Zandman, and a revolutionary technology. From there we would grow and strengthen over decades, arriving where we are today: one of the world’s most trusted manufacturers of electronic components. From discrete semiconductors to passive components, from the smallest diode to the most powerful capacitor, Vishay’s breadth of products constitutes the very foundation that brings modern technology to life, every day, for everyone. We call it The DNA of tech.™ This DNA is more than infrastructure for today’s most vital electronic products, it’s a platform to enable growth. Vishay is well-positioned to propel such timely macroeconomic growth drivers as sustainability, connectivity, and mobility. Through R&D, manufacturing, engineering, quality, sales, and marketing, we generate the essential components that enable inventors and innovators to create new generations of products— ones that span many sectors: automotive, industrial, consumer, computing, telecommunications, military & aerospace, and medical. Together with the manufacturers of today’s and tomorrow’s most compelling electronic innovations, names you know, we are enabling next-level automation in factories, the electrification of the automobile, 5G network technology, and the rapid expansion of connectivity across everything (IoT) to highlight a few areas of strong growth. This diversity of opportunity is the reason Vishay has thrived, and why we are driven to be the DNA behind the success of our customers and partners and to be part of making a future that’s safer, sustainable, and more productive. Acquisitions Vishay has made a number of strategic acquisitions over the years. These include Dale® Electronics, Draloric® Electronic, Sfernice, Sprague® Electric, Roederstein®, Vitramon®, BCcomponents® (including Beyschlag®), the Semiconductor Business Group of TEMIC® (Telefunken and Siliconix®), the infrared component business of Infineon Technologies, General Semiconductor®, selected product lines from International Rectifier®, Huntington Electric, HiRel Systems, MCB Industrie, Holy Stone Polytech, Capella Microsystems, UltraSource®, and Applied Thin-Film Products. Vishay continues to explore opportunities for targeted acquisitions that fit its business model. 2 Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. FROM THE EXECUTIVES No one expected the challenges and stresses we all have faced in 2020, but the outlook for 2021 is very encouraging for Vishay’s business and even more so for Vishay’s performance in a strong environment. I am thankful to report that we have largely been successful at minimizing the COVID-19 impact and keeping our employees safe. Our front-line workers around the world have ensured continuity of supply to our customers. This year we started sharing Vishay’s story in a new way, which reflects feedback from in-depth customer interviews that revealed how much Vishay is depended upon to be a reliable source of essential electronic components. The opportunity exists to leverage the breadth and depth of our product portfolio in solving customers’ design challenges. It is inspiring to be shaping tomorrow’s Executive Chairman innovations by empowering today’s inventors with one of the world’s largest portfolios of high quality, of the Board highly reliable, energy-efficient electronic components. We’re proud to be the go-to manufacturer for Marc Zandman customers, allowing them to innovate with ease and confidence knowing that The DNA of tech™ is behind them all the way. Vishay remains firmly committed to driving stockholder value. We regard growth as the basis for doing so. I am confident that the growth initiatives we are currently implementing will start to show results mid and long term. I am grateful to all members of the Vishay family for their hard work and dedication, especially in these difficult worldwide conditions, and to our customers, vendors, strategic business partners, and stockholders for their constant and tireless support. The year 2020 was for Vishay Intertechnology and its business partners completely overshadowed by a new experience, the COVID-19 pandemic. From temporary plant shutdowns in Asia and temporary shortages in the early part of the year, to drastic reactions by automotive customers in the second quarter and a steep and broad recovery of orders in the last months of the year, Vishay was able to maintain efficiencies while minimizing fixed costs and then to quickly ramp back up again. Once again, Vishay proved to be an excellent generator of “free cash” (the amount of cash generated from operations in excess of capital expenditures and net proceeds from the sale of assets)—we generated $192 million in “free cash” during 2020. We continue to explore avenues to simplify our balance sheet and to benefit our stockholders. During 2020 and early 2021, we completed our three-year program to retire our convertible senior debentures due in 2040, 2041, and 2042. These instruments had been convertible Chief Executive Officer into more than 43 million shares of common stock. Also, during 2020, we opportunistically Dr. Gerald Paul repurchased $135 million in principal amount of our convertible senior notes at approximately 95.3% of face value. In addition, we entered into a supplemental indenture related to the convertible notes due in 2025, which will effectively require Vishay to repay the principal amount of any converted notes in cash. These actions reduce the potential dilutive impact of these convertible instruments on our stockholders, and also provide us with the flexibility to better adjust debt levels if necessary. Vishay is very well-positioned in the two end markets, automotive and industrial, that are poised to show strong growth for the foreseeable future. Vishay is also in the process of putting various initiatives in place to accelerate our growth above and beyond the end market growth we are currently experiencing. These initiatives range from strengthening our engagement with our distribution partners to adding more focus on high growth market segments and applications. I thank all of Vishay’s employees, customers, vendors, strategic business partners, and stockholders for their continued faith in Vishay. 2020 Annual Report 3 ENABLING TOMORROW’S INNOVATIONS In 2020, Vishay adopted a new brand proposition, The DNA of tech,™ that speaks to the Company’s remarkable breadth of products, continued commitment to customer relationships, and the invaluable resource for innovation that Vishay has become for almost six decades in business. In the following sections, we highlight some of the ways in which Vishay brings innovation to life by enabling designers to create next-generation products. 4 Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. Enabling smaller end products Long before wearable electronics were invented, it was possible to imagine a communications device that could be worn in the ear or on the wrist. Vishay has helped to make the dream a reality with successive generations of smaller and smaller components that can do more in less space. We achieve miniaturization by various techniques, such as making more efficient use of silicon and resistive elements, or by reducing component height, for which our low profile inductors offer an outstanding example. Without components such as these it would be possible to imagine smartphones, smartwatches, and wireless Bluetooth earbuds, Using energy more efficiently but impossible to actually create them. The need for energy efficiency was once most important in handheld and portable systems. Today it has become a key Making more efficient design goal for an ever-wider range of electronics. Driving use of customer this evolution is the growing proportion of the power budget engineering resources attributable to electronics in, for example, automotive systems, To bring products to market quickly, innovative as well as the cost of powering electronics in facilities like data companies need to deploy their engineering centers, which has become a significant operational expense. resources as efficiently as possible. Vishay Vishay enables innovation in servers, telecom switches, game helps our customers reach this goal in several consoles, all types of vehicles, and a huge range of handheld ways. For example, we provide a wide range and portable systems, with products that use as little energy of tools that help customer engineers quickly as possible to perform supporting functions such as power perform the calculations they need to choose management, power conversion, energy storage, filtering, and or implement components for their designs— many more. making short work of tasks like proper sizing of a remote control receiver window, or selecting Meeting regulatory requirements without the best component for an application based on compromising performance a range of design parameters or simulation data. Regulatory goals such as sustainability and care for the Vishay also helps speed time to market with environment form part of the context in which all technological products like our microBUCK® and microBRICK® innovation takes place. Vishay is constantly working to remove DC/DC converters, which give customers a obstacles to innovation by giving customers the performance pre-designed, scalable solution that eliminates they need without using prohibited substances anywhere in our the need to design these essential circuits from manufacturing processes or in