Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said late Wednesday that financial chief Devinder Kumar was retiring and that Marvell Technology Inc.’s Jean Hu would take his place.
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Kumar will stay at AMD until April to ensure a smooth transition. Willem Meintjes, Marvell’s chief accounting officer since 2018, will succeed Hu as chief financial officer.
Evercore ISI analyst C.J. Muse, who has an outperform rating and a $60 price target on Marvell, said “Jean leaving the company is a clear loss, a key partner with CEO Matt Murphy in the massive transformation of Marvell over the last 6 yrs.”
“That said, Willem joined Marvell in 2016 and has played an instrumental role in the company’s corporate and financial evolution,” Muse said. “And alongside CEO Matt Murphy, we believe the company absolutely remains in great hands today.”
Marvell also narrowed the range of its fourth-quarter forecast to between $1.36 billion and $1.44 billion, while analysts surveyed by FactSet expect $1.4 billion.
Muse said the updated forecast did not come as a surprise, “though we suspect some investors (post-CES) will be comforted by no change considering fears that perhaps management hadn’t guided conservatively enough given concerns regarding worse-than-expected weakness across DC, Networking, and 5G (here we note Marvell in our meeting yesterday suggested they had adequately haircut any perceived weakness by investors).”
Marvell shares fell 2% after hours, following a 3.8% gain to close at $38.42, while AMD shares slipped 0.4% following a 1.4% gain in the regular session to finish at $69.06.
