Losses continue as Tower celebrates growth

LONDON — Tower Semiconductor Ltd., a chip foundry that trades as TowerJazz, turned in a net loss on increased sales for the third quarter of 2009. The company forecast strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter but did not comment on profitability.

Tower Semiconductor (Migdal Haemek, Israel) announced that third quarter 2009 revenue was $79.6 million, representing a 31 percent increase over second quarter 2009 revenue of $60.6 million and 36 percent over third quarter 2008 revenue of $58.5 million.

Calculated in accordance with GAAP, Tower Semiconductor recorded a net loss of $30.2 million, including financing expenses of $16.8 million, resulting mainly from the significant increase in market and fair value of the company's tradable securities. The net loss was down slightly from the $30.9 million net loss made in the previous quarter.

"At the end of the third quarter we celebrated the one year anniversary of our merger with Jazz Technologies. In considering the 740 percent increase in EBITDA against similar revenue Q4'08, record design-wins of 109 and numerous new customer engagements and press-releases for each of our specialty offerings, the merger has been widely successful and propelled us into the position of the leading global specialty foundry," said Russell Ellwanger, chief executive officer of Tower, in a statement.

Tower said that revenue in the fourth quarter 2009 would be between $90 million and $94 million, representing a sequential revenue growth of 13 to 18 percent and a 16 to 21 percent year-over-year revenue growth.

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