Wolfspeed, Inc. AGM 2026
Review the key takeaways and the transcript of this earnings call.
Transcript
Preview the first fifteen paragraphs, organized by speaker.
Welcome to the annual meeting for Wolfspeed, Inc. Our host for today's call is Robert Feurle, Chief Executive Officer. I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Feurle, you may begin, sir.
Good afternoon. I'm Robert Feurle, Wolfspeed's Chief Executive Officer. We appreciate your attendance today and welcome you to the 2026 Annual Shareholder Meeting. We're excited to be holding our annual meeting virtually only this year via web portal so that more of our shareholders are able to participate in the meeting without the need to travel to our offices. Before we begin, I'd like to introduce our board members standing for election this year that are present today. In addition to myself, Tony Abate, Chairman of the Board, Mike Bokan, retired Senior Vice President of Sales of Micron Technology, Hong Hou, President and CEO of Semtech, Mark Jensen, Director of Lattice Semiconductor, Andy Mattes, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Coherent Inc., and Paul Walsh, former CFO of Allegro MicroSystems.
I would also like to introduce Gregor van Issum, our CFO, Dave Emerson, our COO, Brad Kohn, our Chief Legal Officer, and Melissa Garrett, our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. I will now turn the meeting over to our Corporate Secretary for the conduct of the official business of the meeting.
The meeting will now please come to order. Please note that no one attending via the web portal or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording devices. I'd like to point out that validated shareholders participating virtually may submit questions at any time during this meeting in the space provided in the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. Questions will be answered following the formal business of the meeting. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible today. I note that I've received the notice of meeting mailed to shareholders and an affidavit sufficient to evidence that the meeting was duly called in accordance with the company's bylaws.
A list of the shareholders of record on the record date for the meeting, which was August 31, 2026, is also available on the website used to access this meeting for inspection by any record shareholder during the meeting. Adam Lindemuth, the company's Corporate Controller, has been appointed as Inspector of Elections for this meeting. If there is anyone holding proxies that have not yet been submitted or who intends to vote shares virtually, please report to the inspector at this time. To establish that we have a quorum to conduct business, the holders of a majority of the shares outstanding on the record date must be present today virtually or by proxy.
The inspector has delivered to me his report in which he has determined, based upon a count of the proxies previously submitted, that the holders of shares representing a majority of the shares outstanding on the record date are present today virtually or by proxy. Based on the inspector's report, I find that a quorum is present for all purposes. This meeting has been called to consider the following items of business. One, the election of seven directors. Two, approval of the 2026 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Three, an advisory vote to approve executive compensation. Four, the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent auditors for the current fiscal year. All as described in the notice of annual meeting and proxy statement previously made available to shareholders.
I note that Tony DeGance of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's independent auditors, is present today virtually to respond to appropriate questions and is welcome to make a statement if he wishes. The company's bylaws require that shareholders give prior notice of any nomination or proposal the shareholder may wish to present. There are no shareholder nominations or proposals, therefore, only the items described in the notice of annual meeting may be considered today. Does any shareholder wish to discuss the matters to be voted on? It is now 12:04, and I declare the polls open. If you are a shareholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted, or if you want to change your previously cast vote, you may do so by voting online if you are attending virtually.
For those attending online, you have the ability to vote by clicking the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. You do not need to vote online if you previously voted using the proxy card or the instructions accompanying the proxy statement. While the votes are being collected and tabulated, our CEO would like to take a few minutes to give you a brief update on Wolfspeed.
Thank you. As we continue to transition into Wolfspeed's next era, our strategy is centered on advancing our technology leadership, diversifying our revenue and customer base, driving operational excellence, and further securing financial strength and stability through financial discipline to capitalize on both our core and emerging markets. First, we have made significant progress in advancing our technology leadership. As we announced this past June, commercial readiness of our fifth-generation silicon carbide MOSFET technology, making another significant milestone in our innovation roadmap. Gen 5 MOSFETs deliver the best specific ON-resistance in the industry while maintaining the excellent switching behavior introduced in our Gen 4 MOSFETs. Also, our 10 kV SiC MOSFET was acknowledged at PCIM, a leading power technology conference in Europe, as a top innovation at the conference. Second, we continue to make significant strides in many of our core end markets, where we are improving our relationships with longstanding customers.
We are also generating significant growth in emerging markets such as AI data centers. We have expanded our leadership with industry veterans in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are not only seeing the benefits of our day-to-day interactions, but it is also supported by the revenue trends being generated. For instance, the full fiscal 2026 year revenue more than doubled on a year-over-year basis for this high-growth end market. With industry-leading silicon carbide technology, differentiate vertically integrated 200 millimeter manufacturing capability and evolving 300 millimeter capabilities, we are extremely well-positioned to support all this intuition as AI data center adoption continues to scale. Third, operational excellence continues to be foundational. We remain relentless on execution in speed, quality, and cost, driving production yields higher and unit production costs lower.
These ongoing improvements will not only serve both our legacy and new customers, but will also result in a fundamentally stronger company, better positioned for sustainable growth and profitability. Lastly, financial discipline remains core to our strategy. In March of this year, we benefited from a refinancing that was a significant step in strengthening our capital structure and reducing our cost of capital. More recently, we announced a conditional 30-year, $1.5 billion loan commitment from the U.S. Department of War to advance the domestic wide bandgap supply chain. This is an important milestone that we are doing from a position of strength. This conditional commitment would provide long-term capital to support our strategy while further strengthening our capital structure, including lowering our capital costs, intermediate-term cash interest payments, given the pay-in-kind structure in the first five years, while benefiting our customers, shareholders, and national security.
These comprehensive initiatives will drive our ongoing success as we continue to drive innovation, capital stewardship, and a customer-centric approach to be the partner of choice with our customers. We will now take questions from our shareholders.
Seeing none, we will now return to the business of the meeting. It appears that all shareholders who wish to vote have done so. It is 12:08 P.M., and I therefore declare the voting closed. The inspector has delivered his preliminary report with the results of the voting prior to today's meeting. The inspector's report shows that all of the proposals received the votes required for approval and that the advisory vote on executive compensation was favorable. We will file the final report of the Inspector of Elections with the records of this meeting. We expect to report the results of the voting on a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC within four business days of this meeting. That concludes the business to be conducted, and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you again for joining us today.
This now concludes the Wolfspeed, Inc. annual meeting of shareholders. Thank you for joining the call.
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