Item 1. Business
This Annual Report on Form 10-K and the documents incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K contain statements that are not historical in nature, are predictive, or that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions or contain other forward-looking statements. Statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the extent and timing of future revenues and expenses and customer demand, statements regarding the deployment of our products and services, statements regarding our reliance on third parties, and statements using words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “forecasts,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “projects,” “should,” “targets,” “will” and “would,” and words of similar import and the negatives thereof, constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are predictions based upon our current expectations about future events. Actual results could vary materially as a result of certain factors, including but not limited to those expressed in these statements. Important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those identified in “Proprietary Technology,” “Competition,” “Risk Factors,” “Critical Accounting Estimates,” “Results of Operations,” “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” and “Liquidity and Capital Resources” contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and the risks discussed in our other Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings.
We urge you to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to our company or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are made only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update these forward-looking statements.
Overview
We enable our customers to design electronic products. Our products and services are designed to give our customers a competitive edge in their development of electronic systems, integrated circuits (“ICs”), electronic devices and increasingly sophisticated manufactured products. Our products and services do this by optimizing performance, minimizing power consumption, shortening the time to bring our customers’ products to market and reducing their design, development and manufacturing costs. Our customers create and sell electronic products at differing levels of completeness. Our electronic systems customers deliver entire devices, such as smartphones, laptop computers, gaming systems, automobiles and autonomous driving systems, servers, cloud datacenter infrastructure, artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems, aerospace and defense, medical equipment and networking products. These systems companies internally develop, or externally purchase, the sub-components for their products, including printed circuit boards (“PCBs”), which interconnect all the hardware components, ICs, which are often referred to as computer chips, and software at various levels which runs on the hardware. Our semiconductor customers deliver ICs, which include subcategories such as memory chips, systems-on-chip (“SoCs”), analog chips, processors and other types of chips.
We offer software, hardware, services and reusable IC design blocks, which are commonly referred to as intellectual property (“IP”). Systems customers use our offerings to develop and integrate software that is key to the functionality of their products, as well as to design their ICs and PCBs. Our semiconductor customers use our offerings to design, configure, analyze and verify ICs. Additionally, some customers license our IP, which accelerates their product development processes by providing pre-designed and verified circuit blocks for their ICs.
Our strategy, which we call Intelligent System Design™, provides the technologies necessary for our customers to develop and optimize a complete and functional electronic product. We address the challenges posed by the needs and trends of electronic systems companies as well as semiconductor companies delivering greater portions of these systems. The development of electronic products, or their sub-components, is complex and requires many engineers using our solutions with specialized knowledge and skill. The rate of technical innovation in electronics is swift, long driven by a concept known as Moore’s Law, which more than 50 years ago predicted that the complexity of ICs would double about every 24 months. In order to make our customers successful, our products must handle this exponential growth rate in complexity, without requiring a corresponding increase in our customers’ costs. Historically, the industry that provided the tools used by IC engineers was referred to as Electronic Design Automation (“EDA”). Today, our offerings include and extend beyond EDA tools to enable Intelligent System Design across three layers as illustrated below—starting with IC and SoC design excellence, followed by system innovation, and then pervasive intelligence.
The core IC and SoC design excellence requires core EDA technologies for custom IC, digital IC and signoff, and functional verification, and leverages pre-build semiconductor IP. These tools, IP and associated services are specifically designed to meet the requirements of engineers who design across analog, digital and mixed-signal domains, and perform the associated verification efforts, including validation of low-level software running on the silicon model, thereby enabling design teams to manage complexity without increasing the team size or extending the project schedule, while reducing technical risks.
The second layer of our strategy centers around system innovation. It includes tools and services used for system design of the packages that encapsulate the ICs and the PCBs, system simulation which includes electromagnetic, electro-thermal and other multi-physics analysis necessary as part of optimizing the full system’s performance, Radio Frequency (“RF”) and microwave systems, and embedded software.
The third layer of our strategy is enabling pervasive intelligence in new electronics. It starts with providing solutions and services to develop AI-enhanced systems and includes machine learning and deep learning capabilities being added to the Cadence technology portfolio to make IP and tools more automated and to produce optimized results faster, supported by cloud access to address the growing computation needs of our customers.
Business Drivers
Our products and services allow our customers to design complex and innovative electronic products which are accelerated by growing digital transformation. Demand for our technology and expertise is driven by our customers’ investment in new designs and products. The most promising new opportunities for us involve enabling the design of electronic systems for AI, edge computing, hyperscale computing including datacenter infrastructure, communications, including 5G networks, augmented reality, virtual reality, internet-of-things (“IoT”), aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial and healthcare subsystems. Large and existing electronics categories, such as datacenter servers, smartphones and networking products continue to provide business opportunities for us as customers initiate new design projects.
Underlying the requirements within any particular vertical market sector is the availability of rapidly improving IC manufacturing technology. In order for our customers to take advantage of such advancements, some of our products must first be developed to exploit new manufacturing capabilities. This dependency means that we must invest significantly in product research and development (“R&D”) to keep pace with the latest manufacturing technology. The demand for new IC manufacturing technology directly impacts the demand for our newest products.
Another driver for our business is the differentiation, capabilities and benefits provided to our customers by our products. With the rapid pace of innovation comes the opportunity for our products to address key challenges associated with electronic product creation, such as power consumption, performance and cost. Our products and services have unique attributes that our customers value. In general, these attributes can be grouped into broader categories such as quality of results (“QoR”) (in terms of power consumption, performance and chip area), engineering productivity, tool performance, and faster time-to-market. Our business opportunities are significantly enhanced when our offerings address these key factors. We are applying machine learning techniques within our products to enhance QoR, productivity, performance and methodology.
Products and Product Strategy
Our Intelligent System Design strategy is to provide our customers with the ability to address the broad range of issues that arise as they develop electronic products. Our solutions are comprised of products that are categorized according to the role they play in the electronic product design process. We combine our products and technologies into categories related to major design activities, including Custom IC and Simulation, Digital IC Design and Signoff, Functional Verification, IP, and System Interconnect and Analysis.
Custom IC Design and Simulation
Our Custom IC design and simulation offerings are used by our customers to create schematic and physical representations of circuits down to the transistor level for analog, mixed-signal, custom digital, memory and RF designs. These representations are verified using simulation tools optimized for each type of design, including the design capture environment, simulation and IC layout within the Virtuoso® custom design platform. Other tools in the custom IC portfolio are used to prepare the designs for manufacturing.
Virtuoso Advanced Node adds functionality to the base Virtuoso package to enable the use of three-dimensional transistors (“FinFETs”), multi-patterning and other technologies required for advanced designs. The Virtuoso RF solution addresses the challenges of RF design across chip, package and board. Spectre® Simulator provides large-scale verification simulation. The Virtuoso System Design Platform enables engineers to design and verify concurrently across the chip, package and board.
Digital IC Design and Signoff
Digital IC design and signoff offerings are used to create logical representations of a digital circuit or an IC that can be verified for correctness prior to implementation (please refer to the discussion under “Functional Verification” below). Once the logic is verified, the design representation is implemented, or converted to a format ready for silicon manufacturing, using additional software tools within this category. The manufacturing representation is also analyzed and verified. Our digital IC and signoff technology suite provides a full flow to achieve power, performance, and area (“PPA”) design targets, and includes three major categories: logic design, physical implementation and signoff.
Our logic design offering is comprised of logic synthesis, test and equivalence checking capabilities and is typically used by customers to create and verify designs in conjunction with our functional verification capabilities. The offering includes the Genus™ Synthesis Solution, a logic synthesis offering that provides fast throughput while also offering high quality results, the Stratus™ High-Level Synthesis solution for system-level synthesis, and the Joules™ RTL Power Solution, which delivers fast power analysis while preserving near-signoff accuracy. We also offer the Modus Design-For-Test (“DFT”) software solution, which reduces SoC test time.
Our physical implementation offering comprises tools used near the end of the design process, including place and route, optimization and multi-patterning preparation. The Innovus™ Implementation System is a physical implementation offering that delivers fast design turnaround time while also delivering improved PPA characteristics. This offering enables customers to address the technology challenges of the latest semiconductor advanced-process nodes, create a physical representation of logic models and prepare a design for signoff.
Our signoff offering is comprised of tools used to signoff the design as ready for manufacture by a semiconductor foundry, which provides certification for this step. This offering includes the Tempus™ Timing Signoff Solution, Voltus™ Power Integrity Solution, Quantus™ Extraction Solution, and Pegasus™ Physical Verification System. Our design-for-manufacturing (“DFM”) products are also included in our signoff offering and are used by customers to address manufacturing and yield issues as early in the product development process as possible.
Functional Verification
Functional verification products are used by our customers to efficiently and effectively verify that the circuitry or the software they have designed will perform as intended. Verification takes place during and after custom and analog design, and before manufacturing the circuitry, significantly reducing the risk of discovering a costly error in the completed product.
Our Verification Suite™ includes four primary verification engines, starting with the JasperGold® Formal Verification Platform and Xcelium™ Parallel Logic Simulation Platform, which are used in the early stages of design, often at the IP and subsystem level. Once the design is more mature, with early formal and simulation verification tasks performed, verification engineers deploy our Palladium® Emulation Platform and Protium™ Prototyping Platform for more complete chip verification, often running low-level embedded software on top of a model of the chip, to ensure proper functionality before silicon manufacturing.
These engines are used for early bug detection, verification of block-level functionality, verification acceleration and emulation of system-level functionality, system-level power exploration, analysis and optimization, and system-level prototyping for hardware/software co-verification. Palladium provides high throughput, capacity, datacenter reliability and workgroup productivity to enable global design teams to develop advanced hardware-software systems. Protium leverages a common front end with the Palladium environment in order to move designs rapidly from emulation to the prototyping stage, allowing for software development to start weeks to months earlier.
These engines are also supported by other verification tools that provide an environment that allows for effective verification throughput, including verification planning and metric tracking, testbench automation, debugging and software-driven tests, enabling our customers to coordinate verification activities across multiple verification engines, and teams and locations for effective verification closure.
IP
Our IP offerings consist of pre-verified, customizable functional blocks, which customers integrate into their ICs to accelerate the development process and to reduce the risk of errors in the design process. We offer many types of IP, including Tensilica® configurable digital signal processors (“DSPs”), vertically targeted subsystems for AI, audio/voice, baseband and vision/imaging applications, controllers and physical interfaces for standard protocols and analog IP. We have significantly expanded our design IP portfolio in recent years through acquisitions and internal development, providing solutions for high speed SerDes, PCI, USB and many other standards.
We also offer a broad range of Verification IP (“VIP”) with memory models, which model the expected behavior of many industry standard protocols when used with verification solutions and are complementary to our design IP offerings. VIP and accelerated VIP (“AVIP”), which is used in emulation, are used across the suite of functional verification engines to verify the correct interaction with dozens of design IP interface protocols such as DDR, USB and PCI Express®. Our VIP offerings are also used in system-level verification to model correct behavior of full systems interacting with their environments.
System Interconnect and Analysis
Our system interconnect and analysis offerings are used by our customers to develop PCBs and IC packages, and analyze electromagnetic, electro-thermal and other multi-physics effects.
The capabilities in the Allegro® System Interconnect Design Platform include PCB authoring and implementation, IC package and System-in-Package (“SiP”) design and signal and power integrity (“SI/PI”) analysis and PCB library design management and collaboration. The need for compact, high-performance mobile, consumer and automotive design with advanced serial interconnect is driving the technology evolution for our PCB offerings. For mainstream PCB customers, where individual or small team productivity is a focus, we provide the OrCAD® family of offerings that is primarily marketed worldwide through a network of resellers.
Our technology portfolio expanded in 2019 into the growing system analysis market segment. The speed and close proximity of signals on silicon, through packages to boards, and through connectors and cables, exposes these communications to various kinds of interference, generates heat and emits electromagnetic radiation. Careful analysis is required to assure these systems will work as designed under a wide range of operating conditions and within compliance of standards and laws. The complexity of these devices and signal transmissions requires analysis and simulation throughout the product lifecycle to meet these objectives. Our Clarity™ 3D Solver for electromagnetic and power electronics analysis and simulation, as well as our Celsius™ Thermal Solver, provide the foundation for multi-physics analysis technology, with complete electrical-thermal co-simulation for electronic systems from ICs to physical enclosures.
Recent Acquisitions
Building upon Virtuoso RF technology and expertise and to better address increasing RF/microwave design activity, driven by growing use of 5G communications, our portfolio expanded with the acquisition of AWR Corporation and Integrand Software, Inc. in the first quarter of fiscal 2020.
Product Arrangements
We primarily license our software using time-based licenses. Our time-based license arrangements offer customers the right to access and use all of the products delivered at the outset of an arrangement and updates throughout the entire term of the arrangement, which is generally two to three years, with no rights to return. Our updates provide for continued access to our evolving technology as our customers’ designs migrate to more advanced nodes. In addition, certain time-based license arrangements include the right for the customer to remix among the products delivered at the outset of the arrangement and use of unspecified additional products that become commercially available during the term of the arrangement.
A small portion of our software is licensed under perpetual licenses, which does not include the right to use new technology. Payment terms for time-based licenses generally provide for payments to be made over the license period and payment terms for perpetual licenses generally are net 30 days.
The Cadence Cloud portfolio, consisting of Cadence-managed and customer-managed environments for electronic product developers using the scalability of the cloud, continues to expand and now includes a broader cloud-ready set of products. Contractual arrangements with customers for both environments are time based, similar to the on-premise software license arrangements described above.
Our emulation and prototyping hardware products are either sold or leased to our customers. Our emulation hardware can also be accessed remotely via a Cadence-managed cloud arrangement.
We generally license our design IP under nonexclusive license agreements that provide usage rights for specific designs. Some customers enter into a non-cancellable IP Access Agreement (“IPAA”), whereby the customer commits to a fixed dollar amount over a specified period of time that can be used to purchase from a list of IP products or services. In addition, for certain IP license agreements, we collect royalties as our customers ship their product that includes our IP to their customers.
For a further description of our license agreements, our emulation and prototyping hardware sale or lease agreements, revenue recognition policies and results of operations, please refer to the discussion under “Critical Accounting Estimates” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”
Technical Support and Maintenance
Customer service and support is critical to the adoption and successful use of our products. We provide our customers with technical support and maintenance to facilitate their use of our software, hardware and IP solutions.
Our education services offerings can be customized and include training programs that are delivered online or in a classroom setting. The content of these offerings ranges from the latest design techniques to methodologies for using the most recent features of our products. The primary focus of education services is to accelerate our customers’ path to productivity in the use of our products.
Services
We offer a number of services, including services related to methodology, education and hosted design solutions. These services may be sold separately or sold and performed in conjunction with the license, sale or lease of our products. As necessary, specialized design services engineers are assigned to internal R&D projects associated with our design IP business.
As part of our services offerings, we design advanced ICs, develop custom IP and help customers address design challenges. This enables us to target and accelerate the development of new software technology and products to satisfy current and future design requirements.
We offer engineering services to collaborate with our customers in the design of complex ICs and the implementation of key design capabilities, including low power design, IC packaging and board design, functional verification, digital implementation, analog/mixed-signal design and system-level design. The customers for these services primarily consist of semiconductor and systems companies developing products for the consumer, communications, automotive, aerospace and defense, and computing markets. These ICs range from digital SoCs and analog and RF designs to complex mixed-signal ICs.
In delivering methodology services, we leverage our experience and knowledge of design techniques, our products, leading practices and different design environments to improve the productivity of our customers’ engineering teams. Depending on the customers’ projects and needs, we work with customers using outsourced, consultative and collaborative offerings.
Third-Party Programs and Initiatives
In addition to our products, many customers use design tools that are provided by other companies, as well as design IP available from alternative suppliers. We support the use of third-party design products and design IP through our Connections® program and through our participation in industry groups such as the Silicon Integration Initiative and Accellera System Initiative. We actively contribute to the development and deployment of industry standards.
We also have a strategic partnership with Green Hills Software to provide embedded systems solutions focused on safety and security for critical applications such as aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial and medical devices.
Product and Maintenance and Services Revenue
Revenue, and revenue as a percentage of total revenue, from our product and maintenance and services offerings for the last three fiscal years were as follows:
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2019
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2018
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2017
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(In millions, except percentages)
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Product and maintenance
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$
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2,204
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94
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%
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$
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1,998
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93
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%
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$
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1,814
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93
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%
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Services
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132
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6
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%
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140
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7
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%
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129
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7
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%
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Total revenue
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$
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2,336
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$
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2,138
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$
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1,943
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Between 85% and 90% of our revenue is characterized as recurring revenue. Revenue characterized as recurring includes revenue recognized over time from our software arrangements, services, royalties from certain IP arrangements, maintenance on IP licenses and hardware, operating leases of hardware and revenue recognized at varying points in time over the term of our IP Access Agreements.
The remainder of our revenue is characterized as upfront revenue. Up-front revenue is primarily generated by our sales of emulation and prototyping hardware and individual IP licenses. The percentage of our recurring and up-front revenue may be impacted by delivery of hardware and IP products to our customers in any single fiscal period.
For an additional description of our product and maintenance and services revenue, see the discussion under “Results of Operations” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” For our fiscal 2019 results of operations and our financial position as of December 28, 2019, see Part IV, Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.”
Backlog and Remaining Performance Obligations
Revenue allocated to remaining performance obligations represents the transaction price allocated to the performance obligations that are unsatisfied, or partially unsatisfied, which includes unearned revenue and amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. We have elected to exclude the potential future royalty receipts from the remaining performance obligations. Contracted but unsatisfied performance obligations were approximately $3.6 billion as of December 28, 2019, which includes $205.7 million of non-cancellable IPAA commitments from customers where actual product selection and quantities of specific products or services are to be determined by customers at a later date. We expect to recognize approximately 55% of the revenue included in the contracted but unsatisfied performance obligations, excluding non-cancellable IPAA commitments, over the next 12 months and the remainder thereafter.
Marketing and Sales
We generally market our products and provide services to existing and prospective customers through a direct sales force consisting of sales people and applications engineers. Applications engineers provide technical pre-sales and post-sales support for our products. Due to the complexity of many of our products and the system design process, the sales cycle is generally long, requiring three to six months or more. During the sales cycle, our direct sales force generally provides technical presentations, product demonstrations and support for on-site customer evaluation of our solutions. We also promote our products and services through advertising, marketing automation, trade shows, public relations and the internet. We selectively utilize value-added resellers to broaden our reach and reduce cost of sales. Our OrCAD products and certain Allegro products are primarily marketed through these channels. With respect to international sales, we generally market and support our products and services through our subsidiaries. We also use a third-party distributor to license our products and services to certain customers in Japan.
Research and Development
Our future performance depends on our ability to innovate, commercialize newly developed solutions and enhance and maintain our current products. The primary areas of our research and development align with our product categories discussed above. We must continuously re-engineer our products to solve new or increased physics challenges that arise with each successive process node and address the increase in complexity that is introduced by the resulting much larger designs. We must also keep pace with our customers’ technical developments, satisfy industry standards and meet our customers’ increasingly demanding performance, productivity, quality and predictability requirements. Therefore, we expect to continue to invest in research and development.
Hardware Manufacturing and Software Distribution
Our emulation and prototyping hardware, including all individual PCBs, custom ICs and FPGA-based prototyping components, is manufactured, assembled and tested by subcontractors before delivery to our customers. Software and documentation are primarily distributed to customers by secure electronic delivery, by way of the cloud or on DVD.
Proprietary Technology
Our success depends, in part, upon our proprietary technology. We generally rely on patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secret laws, licenses and restrictive agreements to establish and protect our proprietary rights in technology and products. Many of our products include software or other IP licensed from third parties. We may have to seek new licenses or renew existing licenses for third-party software and other IP in the future. As part of performing engineering services for customers, our engineering services business uses certain software and other IP licensed from third parties, including that of our competitors.
Competition
We compete most frequently with Synopsys, Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation, a division of Siemens AG, and ANSYS, Inc., and also with numerous other tools providers, manufacturers of electronic devices that have developed, acquired or have the capability to develop their own EDA products, technical software companies, electronics design and consulting companies, and other IP companies. These include Altium Limited, CEVA, Inc., Keysight Technologies, Inc. and Zuken Ltd.
Certain competitive factors in the engineering services business differ from those of the products businesses. While we compete with other EDA companies in the engineering services business, our principal competitors include independent engineering service businesses. Many of these companies are also customers, and therefore use our product offerings in the delivery of their services or products.
Corporate Information
We were organized as a Delaware corporation in June 1988. Our headquarters is located at 2655 Seely Avenue, San Jose, California 95134. Our telephone number is (408) 943-1234. We use our website at www.cadence.com to communicate important information about our company, including news releases and financial information. Our website permits investors to subscribe to email notification alerts when we post new material information on our website. We also make available on our investor relations webpage, free of charge, copies of our SEC filings and submissions, which can be found at the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing or furnishing such documents with the SEC. Stockholders may also request copies of these documents by writing to our Corporate Secretary at the address above. Information on our website is not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K unless expressly noted.
Fiscal Year End
Our fiscal years are 52- or 53-week periods ending on the Saturday closest to December 31. Fiscal 2019, 2018 and 2017 were each 52-week fiscal years. Our next 53-week fiscal year will be fiscal 2020.
Employees
As of December 28, 2019, we had approximately 8,100 full-time employees.
INFORMATION ABOUT OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
The following table provides information regarding our executive officers as of February 24, 2020:
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Name
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Age
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Positions and Offices
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Lip-Bu Tan
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60
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Chief Executive Officer and Director
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John M. Wall
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49
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Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
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Anirudh Devgan
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50
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President
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Thomas P. Beckley
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62
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Senior Vice President, Research and Development
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James J. Cowie
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55
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Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
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Surendra Babu Mandava
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61
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Senior Vice President, Research and Development
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Chin-Chi Teng
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54
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Senior Vice President, Research and Development
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Neil Zaman
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51
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Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations
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Our executive officers are appointed by the Board of Directors and serve at the discretion of the Board of Directors.
LIP-BU TAN has served as Chief Executive Officer of Cadence since January 2009. From January 2009 to November 2017, Mr. Tan also served as President of Cadence. Mr. Tan has been a member of the Cadence Board of Directors since February 2004. In 1987, Mr. Tan founded Walden International, an international venture capital firm, and has served as its Chairman since its founding. Mr. Tan serves as a director of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China (AMEC), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company and Schneider Electric SE. Mr. Tan has a B.S. from Nanyang University in Singapore, an M.S. in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco.
JOHN M. WALL has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cadence since October 2017. From October 2000 to September 2017, Mr. Wall held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President and Corporate Controller from April 2016 to October 2017, Vice President, Finance and Operations, Worldwide Revenue Accounting and Sales Finance from 2015 to 2016 and Vice President, Finance and Operations, EMEA and Worldwide Revenue Accounting from 2005 to 2015. Mr. Wall has an NCBS from the Institute of Technology, Tralee and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
ANIRUDH DEVGAN has served as President of Cadence since November 2017. From May 2012 to November 2017, Dr. Devgan held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Executive Vice President, Research and Development from March 2017 to November 2017 and Senior Vice President, Research and Development from November 2013 to March 2017. Prior to joining Cadence, from May 2005 to March 2012, Dr. Devgan served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Custom Design Business Unit at Magma Design Automation, Inc., an EDA company. Dr. Devgan has a B.Tech. in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
THOMAS P. BECKLEY has served as Senior Vice President, Research and Development of Cadence since September 2012. From April 2004 to September 2012, Mr. Beckley served as Corporate Vice President, Research and Development of Cadence. Prior to joining Cadence, Mr. Beckley served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Neolinear, Inc., a developer of auto-interactive and automated analog/RF tools and solutions for mixed-signal design that was acquired by Cadence in April 2004. Mr. Beckley has a B.S. in mathematics and physics from Kalamazoo College and an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University.
JAMES J. COWIE has served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Cadence since April 2008 and Secretary of Cadence since May 2008. From August 2000 to March 2008, Mr. Cowie held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President – Business Development, Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary. Mr. Cowie has an A.B. in economics from Duke University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.
SURENDRA BABU MANDAVA has served as Senior Vice President, Research and Development of Cadence since January 2017. Prior to joining Cadence, Mr. Mandava served as Chief Executive Officer of Ineda Systems Inc., a low-power SoC solutions company, from November 2014 to July 2016, Vice President of Broadcom Corporation, a provider of semiconductor solutions, from November 2010 to December 2012, and President and then as Chief Executive Officer of Beceem Communications Inc., a semiconductor company, from December 2003 until it was acquired by Broadcom in November 2010. Mr. Mandava has a B.Tech. in electronics and communication engineering from the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, and a M.Tech. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
CHIN-CHI TENG has served as Senior Vice President, Research and Development of Cadence since September 2018. From January 2002 to September 2018, Dr. Teng held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President, Research and Development from June 2015 to September 2018, and Vice President, Research and Development from March 2009 to June 2015. Dr. Teng has a B.S. in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
NEIL ZAMAN has served as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations of Cadence since September 2015. From October 1999 to September 2015, Mr. Zaman held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President, North America Field Operations. Prior to joining Cadence, Mr. Zaman held positions at Phoenix Technologies Ltd. and IBM Corporation. Mr. Zaman has a B.S. in finance from California State University, Hayward.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described in the sections below, that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and the trading price of our common stock.
Risks Related to Our Business
Any periods of uncertainty in the global economy and international trade relations, and any potential downturn in the semiconductor and electronics industries, may negatively impact our business and reduce our bookings levels and revenue.
Purchases of our products and services are dependent upon the commencement of new design projects by IC manufacturers and electronics systems companies. The IC and electronics systems industries are cyclical and are characterized by constant and rapid technological change, rapid product obsolescence and price erosion, evolving standards, short product life cycles and wide fluctuations in product supply and demand.
The IC and electronics systems industries have also experienced significant downturns in connection with, or in anticipation of, maturing product cycles of both these industries’ and their customers’ products. Spending on our products and services has grown in recent years, but the current outlook for the semiconductor industry is uncertain and may result in a decrease in spending on our products and services.
Uncertainty about future political and economic conditions, adverse changes to international trade relationships between countries in which we do business or future decline in corporate or consumer spending could negatively impact our customers’ businesses, reducing the number of new chip designs and their overall research and development spending, including their spending on our products and services, and as a result decrease demand for our products and services. Decreased bookings for our products and services, customer bankruptcies, consolidation among our customers, or problems or delays with our hardware suppliers or with the supply or delivery of our hardware products could also adversely affect our ability to grow our business or adversely affect our future revenues and financial results. Our future business and financial results, including demand for our products and services, are subject to considerable uncertainty that could impact our stock price. If economic conditions or international trade relationships between countries in which we do business deteriorate in the future, or, in particular, if semiconductor or electronics systems industry revenues do not grow, the ability to export or import products or services by the semiconductor or electronics systems industry is adversely restricted, or our supplies of hardware components and products are subject to problems or delays, our future revenues and financial results could be adversely affected.
During fiscal 2019, the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) of the U.S. Department of Commerce placed certain entities who are our customers on the “Entity List,” limiting our ability to deliver products and services to these entities. When certain customers are on the Entity List, and in the absence of a license from the BIS, it will have a negative effect on our ability to sell products and provide services to these customers. Entity List restrictions will also encourage customers to seek substitute products from our competitors that are not subject to these restrictions or to develop their own solutions, thereby decreasing our long-term competitiveness. In addition, although customers are not prohibited from paying (and we are not restricted from collecting) for products we previously delivered to them, the credit risks associated with outstanding receivables from customers on the Entity List could increase as a result of these limitations.
We cannot predict whether or when any changes will be made that eliminate or decrease these limitations on our ability to sell products and provide services to these customers. We are unable to predict the duration of the export restrictions imposed with respect to any particular customer or the long-term effects on our business or our customers’ business. Additionally, other companies may be added to the Entity List and/or be subject to trade restrictions. In addition, there may be indirect impacts to our business which we cannot reasonably quantify, including that our business may also be impacted by other trade restrictions that may be imposed by the U.S., China, or other countries. Restrictions on our ability to sell and ship our products to customers on the Entity List have had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition.
Customer consolidation could affect our operating results.
There has been a trend toward customer consolidation in the semiconductor industry through business combinations, including mergers, asset acquisitions and strategic partnerships. As this trend continues, it could make us more dependent on fewer customers who may be able to exert increased pressure on our prices and other contract terms and could increase the portion of our total sales concentration for any single customer. Customer consolidation activity could also reduce the demand for our products and services if such customers streamline research and development or operations, reduce purchases or delay purchasing decisions. These outcomes could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.
Our failure to respond quickly to technological developments or customers’ increasing technological requirements could make our products uncompetitive and obsolete.
The industries in which we compete experience rapid technology developments, rapid changes in industry standards and customer requirements, and frequent introductions and improvements of new products. Currently, the industries we serve are experiencing the following trends:
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changes in the design and manufacturing of ICs, including migration to advanced-process nodes and three-dimensional transistors, such as FinFETs, present major challenges to the semiconductor industry, particularly in IC design, design automation, design of manufacturing equipment, and the manufacturing process itself. With migration to advanced-process nodes, the industry must adapt to more complex physics and manufacturing challenges such as the need to draw features on silicon that are many times smaller than the wavelength of light used to draw the features via lithography. Models of each component’s electrical properties and behavior also become more complex as do requisite analysis, design, verification and manufacturing capabilities. Novel design tools and methodologies must be invented and enhanced quickly to remain competitive in the design of electronics in the smallest nanometer ranges;
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the ability to design SoCs increases the complexity of managing a design that, at the lowest level, is represented by billions of shapes on fabrication masks. In addition, SoCs typically incorporate microprocessors and DSPs that are programmed with software, requiring simultaneous design of the IC and the related software embedded on the IC;
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with the availability of seemingly endless gate capacity, there is an increase in design reuse, or the combining of off-the-shelf design IP with custom logic to create ICs or SoCs. The unavailability of a broad range of high-quality design IP (including our own) that can be reliably incorporated into a customer’s design with our software products and services could lead to reduced demand for our products and services;
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increased technological capability of the FPGA, which is a programmable logic chip, creates an alternative to IC implementation for some electronics companies. This could reduce demand for our IC implementation products and services;
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a growing number of low-cost engineering services businesses could reduce the need for some IC companies to invest in EDA products;
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adoption of cloud computing technologies with accompanying new business models for an increasing number of software categories; and
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integration and optimization of solutions for system design with core EDA technologies.
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If we are unable to respond quickly and successfully to these trends, we may lose our competitive position, and our products or technologies may become obsolete. To compete successfully, we must develop, acquire or license new products and improve our existing products and processes on a schedule that keeps pace with technological developments and the requirements for products addressing a broad spectrum of designers and designer expertise in our industries. We must provide frequent and relevant updates to our software products in order to provide substantial benefit to the customer throughout the license periods because of the rapid changes in our customers’ industries. The market must also accept our new and improved products. Our hardware platforms must be enhanced periodically to reduce the likelihood that a competitor surpasses the capabilities we offer. Our introduction of new products could reduce the demand and revenue of our older products or affect their pricing. We must also be able to support a range of changing computer software, hardware platforms and customer preferences. A transition by our customers to different business models associated with cloud computing technologies could result in reduced revenue. We cannot guarantee that we will be successful in keeping pace with all, or any, of the customer trends.
Competitive pressures may require us to reduce our pricing, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
The highly competitive markets in which we do business can put pressure on us to reduce the prices of our software, emulation and prototyping hardware and IP. If our competitors offer significant discounts on certain products in an effort to recapture or gain market share or to sell other software or hardware products, we may then need to lower our prices or offer other favorable terms to compete successfully. Any such changes would be likely to reduce our profit margins and could adversely affect our operating results. Any substantial changes to our prices and pricing policies could cause revenues to decline or be delayed as our sales force implements and our customers adjust to the new pricing policies. Some of our competitors bundle products for promotional purposes or as a long-term pricing strategy or provide guarantees of prices and product implementations. These practices could, over time, significantly constrain the prices that we can charge for our products. If we cannot offset price reductions with a corresponding increase in the number of sales or with lower spending, then the reduced revenues resulting from lower prices could have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
Our Intelligent System Design strategy requires the development or acquisition of products and expertise in new areas of technology. Our inability to develop or acquire these capabilities could impede our ability to address the technical requirements in technology segments which are expected to contribute to our growth.
Our strategy is meant to increase our business among electronic systems companies, which are now designing their own ICs and other electronic subsystems. Our strategy is also meant to increase our business among semiconductor companies, which are increasing their contribution to the end products into which their ICs and other electronic subsystems are incorporated. Part of this strategy involves addressing the needs of new categories of electronic systems, including hyperscale computing and infrastructure, edge computing, machine learning, 5G networks, augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, aerospace and defense, and autonomous vehicle subsystems, where increased investment is expected by our customers. Each of these categories requires technologies and expertise that are application-specific. If we are unable to develop or acquire the application-specific technologies and expertise necessary to address the requirements of these categories, it could impede our ability to expand our business in these categories and ultimately affect our future growth.
We have experienced varied operating results, and our operating results for any particular fiscal period are affected by the timing of revenue recognition, particularly for our emulation and prototyping hardware and IP products.
Various factors affect our operating results, and some of them are not within our control. Our operating results for any period are affected by the mix of products and services sold in a given period and the timing of revenue recognition, particularly for our emulation and prototyping hardware and IP products. In addition, we have recorded net losses in the past and may record net losses in the future. Also, our cash flows from operating activities have and will continue to fluctuate due to a number of factors, including the timing of our billings, collections, disbursements and tax payments.
A substantial portion of the product revenue related to our hardware business and our IP offerings is recognized upon delivery, and our forecasted revenue results are based, in part, on our expectations of hardware and IP to be delivered in a particular quarter. Therefore, changes in hardware and IP bookings or deliveries relative to expectations will have a more immediate impact on our revenue than changes in software or services bookings, for which revenue is generally recognized over time.
In recent years, we made significant investments to expand our IP offerings through, among other things, research and development and acquisitions. As we continue to expand our IP offerings, a portion of the revenue related to our IP bookings will be deferred until we complete and deliver the licensed IP to our customers. As a result, costs related to the research and development of the IP may be incurred prior to the recognition of the related revenue.
Revenue related to our hardware and IP products is inherently difficult to predict because sales of our hardware and IP products depend on the commencement of new projects for the design and development of complex ICs and systems by our customers, our customers’ willingness to expend capital to deploy our new and existing hardware or IP products in those projects and the availability of our new and existing hardware or IP products for delivery. Therefore, our hardware or IP sales may be delayed or may decrease if our customers delay or cancel projects because their spending is constrained or if there are problems or delays with the supply or delivery of our hardware or IP products or our hardware suppliers. Moreover, the hardware and IP markets are highly competitive, and our customers may choose to purchase a competitor’s hardware or IP product based on cost, performance or other factors. These factors may result in lower revenue, which would have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations or cash flows.
A substantial proportion of our software licenses yield revenue recognized over time, which may make it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue in future fiscal periods.
We plan our operating expenses based on forecasted revenue, expected business needs and other factors. These expenses and the effect of long-term commitments are relatively fixed in the short term. Bookings and the related revenue are harder to forecast in a difficult economic environment. If we experience a shortfall in bookings, our operating results could differ from our expectations because we may not be able to quickly reduce our expenses in response to short-term business changes.
The methods, estimates and judgments that we use in applying our accounting policies have a significant impact on our results of operations (see “Critical Accounting Estimates” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”). Such methods, estimates and judgments are, by their nature, subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and factors may arise over time that may lead us to change our methods, estimates and judgments. Changes in those methods, estimates and judgments could significantly affect our results of operations.
Historical results of operations should not be viewed as reliable indicators of our future performance. If our revenue, operating results or business outlook for future periods fall short of the levels expected by us, securities analysts or investors, the trading price of our common stock could decline.
We have invested and expect to continue to invest in research and development efforts for new and existing products and technologies and technical sales support. Such investments may affect our operating results, and, if the return on these investments is lower or develops more slowly than we expect, our revenue and operating results may suffer.
We have invested and expect to continue to invest in research and development for new and existing products, technologies and services in response to our customers’ increasing technological requirements. Such investments may be in related areas, such as technical sales support, and may include increases in employee headcount. These investments may involve significant time, risks and uncertainties, including the risk that the expenses associated with these investments may affect our margins and operating results and that such investments may not generate sufficient revenues to offset liabilities assumed and expenses associated with these new investments. We believe that we must continue to invest a significant amount of time and resources in our research and development efforts and technical sales support to maintain and improve our competitive position. If we do not achieve the benefits anticipated from these investments, if the achievement of these benefits is delayed, or if customers reduce or slow the need to upgrade or enhance their EDA products and design flows, our revenue and operating results may be adversely affected.
The competition in our industries is substantial, and we may not be able to continue to compete successfully in our industries.
The industries in which we do business, including software, hardware, IP and services for enabling the design of electronic products, are highly competitive and require us to identify and develop or acquire innovative and cost-competitive products, integrate them into platforms and market them in a timely manner. We may not be able to compete successfully in these industries, which could seriously harm our business, operating results or financial condition. Factors that could affect our ability to compete successfully include:
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the development by others of competitive products or platforms and engineering services, possibly resulting in a shift of customer preferences away from our products and services and significantly decreased revenue;
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aggressive pricing competition by some of our competitors may cause us to lose our competitive position, which could result in lower revenues or profitability and could adversely impact our ability to realize the revenue and profitability forecasts for our software or emulation and prototyping hardware systems products;
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the challenges of advanced-node design may lead some customers to work with more mature, less risky manufacturing processes that may reduce their need to upgrade or enhance their EDA products and design flows;
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the challenges of developing (or acquiring externally developed) technology solutions that are adequate and competitive in meeting the rapidly evolving requirements of next-generation design challenges;
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intense competition to attract acquisition targets, possibly making it more difficult for us to acquire companies or technologies at an acceptable price, or at all;
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new entrants, including larger electronic systems companies, in our business;
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the combination of our competitors or collaboration among many companies to deliver more comprehensive offerings than they could individually;
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decisions by electronics manufacturers to perform engineering services or IP development internally, rather than purchase these services from outside vendors due to budget constraints or excess engineering capacity; and
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actions by regulators to limit the contractual terms that either we or our customers can apply to product and service offerings.
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We compete most frequently with Synopsys, Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation, a division of Siemens AG, and ANSYS, Inc., and also with numerous other EDA providers, manufacturers of electronic devices that have developed, acquired or have the capability to develop their own EDA products, technical software companies, electronics design and consulting companies, and other IP companies. These include Altium Limited, CEVA, Inc., Keysight Technologies, Inc. and Zuken Ltd.
We have acquired and expect to acquire other companies and businesses and may not realize the expected benefits of these acquisitions.
We have acquired and expect to acquire other companies and businesses in order to expand our product offerings. Our future revenue growth and expansion of our business is dependent on our successful integration of our acquisitions. We may incur significant costs in connection with potential transactions, including acquisitions that are not consummated. Potential and completed acquisitions involve a number of risks. If any of the following acquisition-related risks occur, our business, operating results or financial condition could be adversely impacted:
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the failure to realize, or a delay in realizing, anticipated benefits such as cost savings and revenue enhancements;
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overlapping customers and product sets that impact our ability to maintain revenue at historical rates;
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the failure to understand, compete and operate effectively in markets where we have limited experience;
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the failure to integrate and manage acquired products, technologies and businesses effectively;
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difficulties in integrating employees of an acquired company or business and the failure to retain key employees;
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difficulties in combining previously separate companies or businesses into a single unit;
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the substantial diversion of management’s attention from day-to-day business when evaluating and negotiating these transactions and integrating an acquired company or business;
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the discovery, after completion of the acquisition, of unanticipated liabilities assumed from an acquired company, business or assets, such that we cannot realize the anticipated value of the acquisition;
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difficulties related to integrating the products of an acquired company or business in, for example, distribution, engineering, licensing models or customer support areas;
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unanticipated costs; or
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unwillingness of customers of an acquired business to continue licensing or buying products from us following the acquisition.
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In a number of our completed acquisitions, we have agreed to make future payments, either in the form of employee retention bonuses or contingent purchase price payments, based on the achievement of specified milestones. The performance goals pursuant to which these future payments may be made generally relate to the achievement by the acquired company or business, or by the employees who joined us with the acquired company or business, of certain specified bookings, revenue, run rate, product proliferation, product development or employee retention goals during a specified period following completion of the applicable acquisition. The specific performance goal levels and amounts and timing of employee bonuses or contingent purchase price payments vary with each acquisition. We may continue to use contingent payments in connection with acquisitions in the future and while we expect to derive value from an acquisition in excess of such contingent payment obligations, we may be required to make certain contingent payments without deriving the anticipated value.
Future acquisitions may involve issuances of stock as full or partial payment of the purchase price for the acquired company or business, grants of restricted stock, restricted stock units or stock options to employees of the acquired companies or businesses (which may be dilutive to existing stockholders), expenditure of substantial cash resources or the incurrence of a material amount of debt. These arrangements may impact our liquidity, financial position and results of operations or increase dilution of our stockholders’ equity interests in the company.
We make and expect to make strategic investments and may not realize the expected benefits of these investments.
We have made and expect to make strategic investments in which we have a minority equity interest and do not have operational control. These strategic investments may also involve collaboration agreements that further and complement our strategy and marketing efforts. We may not be able to realize the expected benefits of these investments, and the related collaborations may be difficult to manage without sole decision-making authority and the economic or business interests in these collaborations may become inconsistent with our interests. These challenges could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
The accounting applied to strategic investments depends on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, our percentage of ownership and the level of our influence over the entity. Losses experienced by these strategic investment entities or associated impairment charges could adversely impact our operating results and the value of our investment. In addition, if these entities fail and cease operations, we may lose the value of our investment and shared profits.
Failure to obtain export licenses or restrictions on trade imposed by the United States or other countries could harm our business by rendering us unable to sell or ship products and transfer our technology outside of the United States.
We must comply with regulations of the United States and of certain other countries in selling or shipping our products and transferring our technology outside the United States and to foreign nationals. Changes in these regulations or restrictions due to changes in trade relationships with the United States, including new tariffs, trade protection measures, import or export licensing requirements, sanctions, trade embargoes and other trade barriers, could harm our business, operating results or financial condition.
The effect of foreign exchange rate fluctuations may adversely impact our revenue, expenses, cash flows and financial condition.
We have significant operations outside the United States. Our revenue from international operations as a percentage of total revenue was approximately 58% during fiscal 2019, 57% during fiscal 2018 and 58% during fiscal 2017. We expect that revenue from our international operations will continue to account for a significant portion of our total revenue. We also transact business in various foreign currencies, although the majority of our revenue contracts worldwide are denominated in U.S. dollars. Volatility of currencies in countries where we conduct business, most notably the U.S. dollar, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen, European Union euro, British pound and Indian rupee have had and may in the future have an effect on our revenue or operating results.
Fluctuations in the rate of exchange between the U.S. dollar and the currencies of other countries where we conduct business could seriously affect our business, operating results or financial condition. For example, when a foreign currency declines in value relative to the U.S. dollar, it takes more of the foreign currency to purchase the same amount of U.S. dollars than before the change. If we price our products and services in the foreign currency, we receive fewer U.S. dollars than we did before the change. If we price our products and services in U.S. dollars, the decrease in value of the local currency results in an increase in the price for our products and services compared to those products of our competitors that are priced in local currency. This could result in our prices being uncompetitive in markets where business is transacted in the local currency. On the other hand, when a foreign currency increases in value relative to the U.S. dollar, it takes more U.S. dollars to purchase the same amount of the foreign currency. As we use the foreign currency to fund payroll costs and other operating expenses in our international operations, this results in an increase in operating expenses. Approximately 30% of our total costs and expenses are transacted in foreign currencies. Our attempts to reduce the effect of foreign currency fluctuations may be unsuccessful, and significant exchange rate movements may adversely impact our results of operations as expressed in U.S. dollars.
Our operating results could be adversely affected by an increase in our effective tax rate as a result of U.S. and foreign tax law changes, outcomes of current or future tax examinations, or by material differences between our forecasted and actual effective tax rates.
Our operations are subject to income and transaction taxes in the United States and in multiple foreign jurisdictions, with a significant amount of our foreign earnings generated by our subsidiaries organized in Ireland and Hungary. Any significant change in our future effective tax rates could adversely impact our results of operations for future periods. Our future effective tax rates could be adversely affected by the following:
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changes in tax laws or the interpretation of such tax laws as applied to our business and corporate structure in the United States, Ireland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, India or other international locations where we have operations;
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earnings being lower than anticipated in countries where we are taxed at lower rates as compared to the United States federal and state statutory tax rates;
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an increase in expenses not deductible for tax purposes;
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an increase in corporate minimum taxes;
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changes in tax benefits from stock-based compensation;
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changes in the valuation allowance against our deferred tax assets;
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changes in judgment from the evaluation of new information that results in a recognition, derecognition or change in measurement of a tax position taken in a prior period;
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increases to interest or penalty expenses classified in the financial statements as income taxes;
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new accounting standards or interpretations of such standards; or
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results of examinations by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), state, and foreign tax or other governmental authorities.
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The IRS and other tax authorities regularly examine our income tax returns and other non-income tax returns, such as payroll, sales, use, value-added, net worth or franchise, property, goods and services, consumption, import, stamp, and excise taxes, in both the United States and foreign jurisdictions. The calculation of our provision for income taxes and our accruals for other taxes requires us to use significant judgment and involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws and regulations. In determining the adequacy of our provision for income taxes, we regularly assess the potential settlement outcomes resulting from income tax examinations. However, the final outcome of tax examinations, including the total amount payable or the timing of any such payments upon resolution of these issues, cannot be estimated with certainty. In addition, we cannot be certain that such amount will not be materially different from the amount that is reflected in our historical income tax provisions and accruals for other taxes. Should the IRS or other tax authorities assess additional taxes, penalties or interest as a result of a current or a future examination, we may be required to record charges to operations in future periods that could have a material impact on our results of operations, financial position or cash flows in the applicable period or periods.
Forecasts of our annual effective tax rate are complex and subject to uncertainty because our income tax position for each year combines the effects of estimating our annual income or loss, the mix of profits and losses earned by us and our subsidiaries in tax jurisdictions with a broad range of income tax rates, as well as benefits from available deferred tax assets, the impact of various accounting rules, our interpretations of changes in tax laws and results of tax audits. Forecasts of our annual effective tax rate do not include the anticipation of future tax law changes. In addition, we account for certain tax benefits from stock-based compensation in the period the stock compensation vests or is settled, which may cause increased variability in our quarterly effective tax rates. If there were a material difference between forecasted and actual tax rates, it could have a material impact on our results of operations.
Tax laws, regulations, and compliance practices are evolving and may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, cash flows and financial position.
The U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”) was enacted in December 2017, and significantly affected U.S. tax law by changing how the United States imposes income tax on multinational corporations. The U.S. Department of Treasury has broad authority to issue regulations and interpretative guidance that may significantly impact how we will apply the law and impact our results of operations. As additional interpretative guidance is issued by the applicable authorities, we may need to revise our provision (benefit) for income taxes in future periods. These revisions could materially affect our results of operations, cash flow and financial position.
Tax laws, regulations, and administrative practices in various jurisdictions are evolving and may be subject to significant changes due to economic, political and other conditions. There are many transactions that occur during the ordinary course of business for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain, and significant judgment is required in evaluating and estimating our provision and accruals for these taxes. Governments are increasingly focused on ways to increase tax revenues, particularly from multinational corporations, which may lead to an increase in audit activity and harsher positions taken by tax authorities. We are currently subject to tax audits in various jurisdictions and these jurisdictions may assess additional tax liabilities against us.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”), an international association of countries, including the United States, released the final reports from its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”) Action Plans, which aim to standardize and modernize global tax policies. The BEPS Action Plans propose revisions to numerous tax rules, including country-by-country reporting, permanent establishment, hybrid entities and instruments, transfer pricing, and tax treaties. The BEPS Action Plans have been or are being enacted by countries where we have operations. The European Commission (“EC”) has conducted investigations in multiple countries focusing on whether local country tax rulings provide preferential tax treatment that violates European Union state aid rules and concluded that certain countries, including Ireland, have provided illegal state aid in certain cases. The EC and OECD have also been evaluating new rules on the taxation of the digital economy to provide greater taxing rights to jurisdictions where customers or users are located and to address additional base erosion and profits shifting issues. In addition, many countries have recently introduced new laws or proposals to tax digital transactions. These developments in tax laws and regulations, and compliance with these rules, could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, financial position and cash flows.
Our stock price has been subject to fluctuations and may continue to be subject to fluctuations.
The market price of our common stock has experienced fluctuations and may fluctuate or decline in the future, and as a result stockholders could lose the value of their investment. The market price of our common stock may be affected by a number of factors, including:
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quarterly or annual operating or financial results or forecasts that fail to meet or are inconsistent with earlier projections or the expectations of our securities analysts or investors;
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changes in our forecasted bookings, revenue, earnings, expenses or operating cash flow estimates;
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an increase in our debt or other liabilities;
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market conditions in the electronics systems and semiconductor industries;
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announcements of a restructuring plan;
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repurchases of shares of our common stock or changes to plans to repurchase shares of our common stock;
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a gain or loss of a significant customer or market segment share;
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litigation, investigations or other regulatory actions;
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announcements of a merger, acquisition or other corporate transaction; and
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announcements of new products or acquisitions of new technologies by us, our competitors or our customers.
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In addition, equity markets in general, and the equities of technology companies in particular, have experienced and may experience in the future, extreme price and volume fluctuations due to, among other factors, the actions of market participants or other actions outside of our control. Such price and volume fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock for reasons unrelated to our business or operating results.
Our future revenue is dependent in part upon our installed customer base continuing to license or buy products and purchase services.
Our installed customer base has traditionally generated additional new license, services and maintenance revenues. In future periods, customers may not necessarily license or buy additional products or contract for additional services or maintenance. Our customers, many of which are large semiconductor and systems companies, often have significant bargaining power in negotiations with us. Customer consolidation can reduce the total level of purchases of our software, hardware, IP and services, and in some cases, increase customers’ bargaining power in negotiations with their suppliers, including us.
We could suffer serious harm to our business because of the infringement of our intellectual property rights by third parties or because of our infringement of the intellectual property rights of third parties, as well as any associated efforts to enforce such rights, including through intellectual property litigation.
There are numerous patents relating to our business and ecosystem. New patents are being issued at a rapid rate and are owned by EDA companies as well as entities and individuals outside the EDA industry, including parties whose income is primarily derived from infringement-related licensing and litigation. It is not always practicable to determine in advance whether a product or any of its components infringes the patent rights of others. As a result, from time to time, we may be compelled to respond to or prosecute intellectual property infringement claims to protect our rights or defend a customer’s rights.
Intellectual property infringement claims, including contractual defense reimbursement obligations related to third-party claims against our customers, regardless of merit, could consume valuable management time, result in costly litigation or cause product shipment delays, all of which could seriously harm our business, operating results or financial condition. The risk of infringement and related indemnification claims associated with design IP products that are incorporated into a customer product broadly used by consumers may be higher than the risk associated with our software products. In settling these claims, we may be required to enter into royalty or licensing agreements with the third parties claiming infringement. These royalty or licensing agreements, if available, may not have terms favorable to us. Being compelled to enter into a license agreement with unfavorable terms could seriously harm our business, operating results or financial condition.
Any potential intellectual property litigation could compel us to do one or more of the following:
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pay damages (including the potential for treble damages), license fees or royalties (including royalties for past periods) to the party claiming infringement;
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stop licensing products or providing services that use the challenged intellectual property;
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obtain a license from the owner of the infringed intellectual property to sell or use the relevant technology, which license may not be available on reasonable terms, or at all; or
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redesign the challenged technology, which could be time consuming and costly, or impossible.
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If we were compelled to take any of these actions, our business, reputation or operating results might suffer.
If our security measures are breached, and an unauthorized party obtains access to customer data, financial data or assets or our proprietary business information, our information systems may be perceived as being unsecure, and our business and reputation could be harmed.
Our products and services involve storage, including cloud-based storage, and transmission of our proprietary information and that of our customers. We have offices throughout the world, including key research and development facilities outside of the United States. Our operations are dependent upon the connectivity of our operations throughout the world. Despite our security measures, our information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to cyber attacks by unauthorized third parties (which may include nation-states and individuals sponsored by them) or breaches due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions, which could result in unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information and could significantly interfere with our business operations. Third parties attempt to gain unauthorized access through a variety of methods (such as the use of viruses, malware, ransomware, phishing, denial of service attacks and other cyber attacks) and corrupt the processes of the products and services that we provide. We may also be a target of malicious attacks in an attempt to gain access to our network, including our Cadence Cloud portfolio, which includes both our managed and customer-managed environments, or data centers or those of our customers or end users; steal proprietary information related to our business, products, services or infrastructure; steal financial data or assets or interrupt our systems and services or those of our customers or others. Breaches of our security measures could expose us to a risk of loss or misuse of this information, loss of financial assets, business interruption, litigation and potential liability. Because techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage information systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. In addition, if we select a vendor that uses cloud storage of information as part of their service or product offerings or are selected as a vendor for our Cadence Cloud portfolio, despite our attempts to validate the security of such services, our proprietary information may be misappropriated by third parties. In the event of an actual or perceived breach of our security, or the security of one of our vendors, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed, legal or regulatory actions could be initiated against us and we could suffer damage to our reputation or our business, or lose existing customers and our ability to obtain new customers, or suffer harm to our financial condition.
Risks associated with our international operations could adversely impact our financial condition.
A significant amount of our revenue is derived from our international operations, and we have offices throughout the world, including key research and development facilities outside of the United States. Our international operations may be subject to a number of risks, including:
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shifts in political, trade or other policies or other governmental dynamics resulting from the results of certain elections or votes, such as changes in policies pursued by the United States, China or the Republic of Korea, or changes associated with and the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union;
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the adoption or expansion of government trade restrictions, including tariffs, export or import regulations, sanctions or other trade barriers;
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limitations on repatriation of earnings;
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limitations on the conversion of foreign currencies;
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reduced protection of intellectual property rights and heightened exposure to intellectual property theft in some countries;
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performance of national economies;
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longer collection periods for receivables and greater difficulty in collecting accounts receivable;
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difficulties in managing foreign operations;
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political and economic instability;
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unexpected changes in regulatory requirements;
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inability to continue to offer competitive compensation in certain growing regions;
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differing employment practices and labor issues;
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United States’ and other governments’ licensing requirements for exports, which may lengthen the sales cycle or restrict or prohibit the sale or licensing of certain products;
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variations in costs or expenses associated with our international operations, including as a result of changes in foreign tax laws or devaluation of the U.S. dollar relative to other foreign currencies; and
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public health emergencies, such as the recent coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent public health measures, affecting our employees, suppliers, customers and our ability to provide services and maintenance in the affected regions.
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Some of our international research and development and other facilities are in parts of the world where there may be a greater risk of business interruption as a result of political instability, terrorist acts or military conflicts than businesses located domestically. Furthermore, this potential harm is exacerbated because damage to or disruptions at our international research and development facilities could have a more significant adverse effect on our ability to develop new or improve existing products than other businesses that may only have sales offices or other less critical operations abroad. We are not insured for losses or interruptions caused by acts of war. Furthermore, our operations are dependent upon the connectivity of our operations throughout the world. Activities that interfere with our international connectivity or operations, such as cyber hacking, the introduction of a virus into our computer systems, natural disasters, public health emergencies, civil unrest or terrorism, could significantly interfere with our business operations.
In addition, internal controls, policies and procedures and employee training and compliance programs that we have implemented to deter prohibited practices may not prevent our employees, contractors or agents from violating or circumventing our policies and the laws and regulations applicable to our worldwide operations.
We depend upon our management team and key employees, and our failure to attract, train, motivate and retain management and key employees may make us less competitive and therefore harm our results of operations.
Our business depends upon the continued services, efforts and abilities of our senior management and other key employees. Competition for highly skilled executive officers and employees can be intense, particularly in geographic areas recognized as high technology centers such as the Silicon Valley area, where our principal offices are located, and in other locations where we maintain facilities. In addition, competition for qualified personnel, including software engineers, in the EDA, commercial electronics engineering services and IP industries has intensified. Further, increased uncertainty regarding social, political and immigration policies in the United States and abroad may make it difficult to recruit employees with adequate experience. We may also experience increased compensation costs that are not offset by either improved productivity or higher sales. We may not be successful in recruiting new personnel and in retaining and motivating existing personnel. Our ability to do so also depends on how well we maintain a strong workplace culture that is attractive to employees. From time to time, there may be changes in our management team resulting from the hiring and departure of executive officers, and as a result, we may experience disruption to our business that may harm our operating results and our relationships with our employees, customers and suppliers may be adversely affected.
To attract, retain and motivate individuals with the requisite expertise, we may be required to grant large numbers of stock options or other stock-based incentive awards, which may be dilutive to existing stockholders and increase compensation expense, and pay significant base salaries and cash bonuses, which could harm our operating results. The high cost of training new employees, not fully utilizing these employees, or losing trained employees to competing employers could also reduce our operating margins and harm our business or operating results.
In addition, applicable rules and regulations require stockholder approval for new equity compensation plans and significant amendments to existing equity compensation plans (including increases in shares available for issuance under such plans). These rules and regulations could make it more difficult for us to grant equity compensation to employees in the future. To the extent that these regulations make it more difficult or expensive to grant equity compensation to employees, we may incur increased compensation costs or find it difficult to attract, retain and motivate employees, which could materially and adversely affect our business.
We rely on our proprietary technology, as well as software and other intellectual property rights licensed to us by third parties, and we cannot assure that the precautions taken to protect our rights will be adequate or that we will continue to be able to adequately secure such intellectual property rights from third parties.
Our success depends, in part, upon our proprietary technology. We generally rely on patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, licenses and restrictive agreements to establish and protect our proprietary rights in technology and products. Despite the precautions we may take to protect our intellectual property, third parties have tried in the past, and may try in the future, to challenge, invalidate or circumvent these safeguards. Our patents and other intellectual property rights may not provide us with sufficient competitive advantages. Patents may not be issued on any of our pending applications and our issued patents may not be sufficiently broad to protect our technology. Furthermore, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our proprietary rights in those countries to the same extent as applicable law protects these rights in the United States, and we may encounter difficulties in our attempts to protect our intellectual property in foreign jurisdictions, including as a result of impacts from changes in international trade relationships. The protection of our intellectual property may require the expenditure of significant financial and managerial resources. Moreover, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property may not adequately protect our rights, or deter or prevent third parties from infringing or misappropriating our proprietary rights.
Many of our products include software or other intellectual property licensed from third parties. We may have to seek new or renew existing licenses for such software and other intellectual property in the future. Our engineering services business holds licenses to certain software and other intellectual property owned by third parties, including that of our competitors. Our failure to obtain software, other intellectual property licenses or other intellectual property rights that are necessary or helpful for our business on favorable terms, or our need to engage in litigation over these licenses or rights, could seriously harm our business, operating results or financial condition.
We have substantial cash requirements in the United States, but a significant portion of our cash is held and generated outside of the United States, and if our cash available in the United States and the cash available under our revolving credit facility are insufficient to meet our operating expenses and debt repayment obligations in the United States, then we may be required to raise cash in ways that could negatively affect our financial condition, results of operations and the market price of our common stock.
We have significant operations outside the United States. As of December 28, 2019, approximately 43% of our cash and cash equivalents balance was held by subsidiaries outside the United States, with the remainder of the balance held by us or our subsidiaries in the United States. We believe that the combination of our U.S. cash, cash equivalents, future U.S. operating cash flows, cash available under our revolving credit facility and other cash that may be accessible to us on attractive terms are sufficient to meet our ongoing U.S. operating expenses and debt repayment obligations. Although the Tax Act may have reduced the tax impact of repatriation of foreign earnings, there are still administrative processes associated with repatriation of foreign earnings that could affect the timing of returning cash to the U.S. from non-U.S. jurisdictions. Accordingly, if our U.S. cash were insufficient to meet our future funding obligations in the United States, we could be required to seek funding sources on less attractive terms, which could negatively impact our results of operations, financial position and the market price of our common stock.
Litigation could adversely affect our financial condition or operations.
We currently are, and in the future may be, involved in various disputes and litigation that arise in the ordinary course of business. These include disputes and lawsuits related to intellectual property, including customer indemnification, mergers and acquisitions, licensing, contracts, distribution arrangements and employee relations matters. For information regarding the litigation matters in which we are currently engaged, please refer to the discussion under Part I, Item 3, “Legal Proceedings” and Note 18 in the notes to consolidated financial statements. We cannot provide any assurances that the final outcome of these lawsuits or any other proceedings that may arise in the future will not have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, operating results, financial condition or cash flows. Litigation can be time consuming and expensive and could divert management’s time and attention from our business, which could have a material adverse effect on our revenues and operating results.
Errors or defects in our products and services could expose us to liability and harm our business.
Our customers use our products and services in designing and developing products that involve a high degree of technological complexity, each of which has its own specifications. Because of the complexity of the systems and products with which we work, some of our products and designs can be adequately tested only when put to full use in the marketplace. As a result, our customers or their end users may discover errors or defects in our software or the systems we design, or the products or systems incorporating our design and intellectual property may not operate as expected. Errors or defects could result in:
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damage to our reputation;
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failure to attract new customers or achieve market acceptance;
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diversion of development resources to resolve the problem;
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loss of or delay in revenue or payments;
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increased service costs; and
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Our operating results and revenue could be adversely affected by customer payment delays, customer bankruptcies and defaults or modifications of licenses.
Occasionally, our customers file for bankruptcy or face other challenging financial or operating conditions. If our customers experience adversity in their business, they may delay or default on their payment obligations to us, request to modify contract terms, or modify or cancel plans to license our products. For instance, if our customers are not successful in generating sufficient cash or are precluded from securing financing, they may not be able to pay, or may delay payment of, accounts receivable that are owed to us, although these obligations are generally not cancelable. Our customers’ inability to fulfill payment obligations, in turn, may adversely affect our revenue, operating expenses and cash flow. Additionally, our customers have, in the past, sought, and may, in the future, seek, to renegotiate pre-existing contractual commitments. Payment defaults by our customers or significant reductions in existing contractual commitments could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.
The long sales cycle of our products and services may cause our operating results to fluctuate unexpectedly.
Generally, we have a long sales cycle that can extend up to six months or longer. The complexity and expense associated with our products and services generally require a lengthy customer education, evaluation and approval process. Consequently, we may incur substantial expenses and devote significant management effort and expense to develop potential relationships that do not result in agreements or revenue and may prevent us from pursuing other opportunities.
In addition, sales of our products and services have been and may in the future be delayed if customers delay approval or commencement of projects because of:
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the timing of customers’ competitive evaluation processes; or
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customers’ budgetary constraints and budget cycles.
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Long sales cycles for hardware products subject us to a number of significant risks over which we have limited control, including insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory, variations in inventory valuation and fluctuations in quarterly operating results.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in United States generally accepted accounting principles, and we may incur significant costs to adjust our accounting systems and processes to comply with significant changes.
United States generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. We are also subject to evolving rules and regulations of the countries in which we do business. Changes to accounting standards or interpretations thereof may result in different accounting principles under U.S. GAAP that could have a significant effect on our reported financial results.
In addition, we have in the past and may in the future need to significantly change our customer contracts, accounting systems and processes when we adopt future or proposed changes in accounting principles. The cost and effect of these changes may negatively impact our results of operations during the periods of transition.
Our restructuring plans incur substantial costs and may not result in the benefits we have anticipated, possibly having a negative effect on our future operating results.
In recent fiscal years, we have initiated restructuring plans in an effort to reallocate or decrease costs by reducing our workforce and by consolidating facilities. We incur substantial costs to implement restructuring plans, and our restructuring activities may subject us to reputational risks and litigation risks and expenses. Our past restructuring plans do not provide any assurance that we will realize anticipated cost savings and other benefits or that additional restructuring plans will not be required or implemented in the future. In addition, our restructuring plans may have other consequences, such as attrition beyond our planned reduction in workforce, a negative effect on employee morale and productivity or our ability to attract highly skilled employees. Our competitors may also use our restructuring plans to seek to gain a competitive advantage over us. As a result, our restructuring plans may affect our revenue and other operating results in the future.
We depend on a single supplier or a limited number of suppliers for certain hardware components and contract manufacturers for production of our emulation and prototyping hardware products, making us vulnerable to supply disruption and price fluctuation.
We depend on a single supplier or a limited number of suppliers for certain hardware components and contract manufacturers for production of our emulation and prototyping hardware products. Our reliance on single or a limited number of suppliers and contract manufacturers could result in product delivery problems and delays and reduced control over product pricing and quality. Though we prefer to have multiple sources to procure certain key components, in some cases it is not practical or feasible to do so. We may suffer a disruption in the supply of certain hardware components if we are unable to purchase sufficient components on a timely basis or at all for any reason. Any supply or manufacturing disruption, including delay in delivery of components by our suppliers or products by our manufacturers, or the bankruptcy or shutdown of our suppliers or manufacturers, could delay our production process and prevent us from delivering completed hardware products to customers or from supplying new evaluation units to customers, which could have a negative impact on our revenue and operating results.
If we become subject to unfair hiring claims, we could be prevented from hiring needed employees, incur liability for damages and incur substantial costs in defending ourselves.
When companies in our industry lose employees to competitors, they frequently claim that these competitors have engaged in unfair hiring practices or that the employment of these persons would involve the disclosure or use of trade secrets. These claims could prevent us from hiring employees or cause us to incur liability for damages. We could also incur substantial costs in defending ourselves or our employees against these claims, regardless of their merits. Defending ourselves from these claims could also divert the attention of our management away from our operations.
Anti-takeover defenses in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and certain provisions under Delaware law could prevent an acquisition of our company or limit the price that investors might be willing to pay for our common stock.
Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and certain provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law that apply to us could make it difficult for another company to acquire control of our company. For example:
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Our certificate of incorporation allows our Board of Directors to issue, at any time and without stockholder approval, preferred stock with such terms as it may determine. No shares of preferred stock are currently outstanding. However, the rights of holders of any of our preferred stock that may be issued in the future may be superior to the rights of holders of our common stock.
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Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any business combination with a person owning 15% or more of its voting stock, or who is affiliated with the corporation and owned 15% or more of its voting stock at any time within three years prior to the proposed business combination, for a period of three years from the date the person became a 15% owner, unless specified conditions are met.
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All or any one of these factors could limit the price that certain investors would be willing to pay for shares of our common stock and could allow our Board of Directors to resist, delay or prevent an acquisition of our company, even if a proposed transaction were favored by a majority of our independent stockholders.
The investment of our cash is subject to risks that may cause losses and affect the liquidity of these investments.
Our marketable investments include various money market funds and may include other investments as well. Weakened financial markets have at times adversely impacted the general credit, liquidity, market prices and interest rates for these and other types of investments. Additionally, changes in monetary policy by the Federal Open Market Committee or other relevant regulators and concerns about the rising U.S. government debt level may cause a decrease in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar and adversely affect our investment portfolio. The financial market and monetary risks associated with our investment portfolio may have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, liquidity, results of operations or cash flows.
We are subject to evolving corporate governance and public disclosure expectations and regulations that impact compliance costs and risks of noncompliance.
We are subject to changing rules and regulations promulgated by a number of governmental and self-regulatory organizations, including the SEC, Nasdaq, and the FASB, as well as evolving investor expectations around corporate governance, executive compensation and environmental and social practices and disclosures. These rules and regulations continue to evolve in scope and complexity, and many new requirements have been created in response to laws enacted by the U.S. and foreign governments, making compliance more difficult and uncertain. The increase in costs to comply with such evolving expectations, rules and regulations, as well as any risk of noncompliance, could adversely impact us.
Our business is subject to the risk of earthquakes and other catastrophic events.
Our corporate headquarters, including certain of our research and development operations and certain of our distribution facilities, is located in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, a region known to experience seismic activity. If significant seismic activity were to occur, our operations may be interrupted, which could adversely impact our business and results of operations.
Our other offices in the United States and in other countries around the world may be adversely impacted by natural disasters, including fires, earthquakes, flooding and other climate change-related risks, or actions by utility providers, as well as other catastrophic events such as an actual or threatened public health emergency. If a catastrophic event occurs at or near any of our offices, or utility providers or public health officials take certain actions (e.g., shut off power to our facilities or impose travel restrictions), our operations may be interrupted, which could adversely impact our business and results of operations. If a catastrophic event impacts a significant number of our customers, resulting in decreased demand for their and our products, or our ability to provide services and maintenance to our customers, our business and results of operations could be adversely impacted. For example, the continued spread of the coronavirus and related public health measures could result in further disruptions to our operations and those of our customers.
Risks Related to Our Securities and Indebtedness
Our debt obligations expose us to risks that could adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition, and could prevent us from fulfilling our obligations under such indebtedness.
As of December 28, 2019, we had total outstanding indebtedness of $346.0 million. We also had the ability to borrow an additional $350.0 million under our revolving credit facility, with the right to request increased capacity up to an additional $250.0 million upon the receipt of lender commitments, for total maximum borrowings of $600.0 million under our revolving credit facility. Subject to the limits contained in the credit agreement governing our revolving credit facility, the indenture that governs the 2024 Notes and our other debt instruments, we may be able to incur substantial additional debt from time to time to finance working capital, capital expenditures, investments or acquisitions, share repurchases or for other purposes. If we do so, the risks related to our high level of debt could intensify. Specifically, our high level of debt could have important consequences, including the following:
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making it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations to service our debt as described above;
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limiting our ability to obtain additional financing to fund future working capital, capital expenditures,
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acquisitions or other general corporate requirements;
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requiring a substantial portion of our cash flows to be dedicated to debt service payments instead of other
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purposes, thereby reducing the amount of cash flows available for working capital, capital expenditures,
acquisitions and other general corporate purposes;
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utilizing large portions of our U.S. cash to service our debt obligations because those payments are made in the United States, which may require us to repatriate cash from outside the United States;
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increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic and industry conditions;
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exposing us to the risk of increased interest rates as certain of our borrowings, including borrowings under
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our revolving credit facility, are at variable rates of interest;
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limiting our flexibility in planning for and reacting to changes in the industry in which we compete;
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placing us at a disadvantage compared to other, less leveraged competitors and competitors that have greater access to capital resources;
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limiting our interest deductions for U.S. income tax purposes; and
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increasing our cost of borrowing.
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At the option of the holders of our outstanding notes, we may, under certain circumstances, be required to repurchase such notes.
Under the terms of our 2024 Notes, we may be required to repurchase for cash such notes prior to their maturity in connection with the occurrence of certain significant corporate events. Specifically, we are required to offer to repurchase such notes upon a “change of control triggering event” (as defined in the indenture related to such notes), such as a change of control accompanied by certain downgrades in the credit ratings of such notes. The repayment obligations under such notes may have the effect of discouraging, delaying or preventing a takeover of our company. If we were required to pay the 2024 Notes prior to their scheduled maturity, it could have a significant negative impact on our cash and liquidity and could impact our ability to invest financial resources in other strategic initiatives.
The terms of the agreement governing our revolving credit facility and the indenture governing our 2024 Notes restrict our current and future operations, particularly our ability to respond to changes or to take certain actions.
The agreement governing our revolving credit facility contains a number of restrictive covenants that impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us and may limit our ability to engage in acts that may be in our long-term best interest, including restrictions on our ability to:
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pay dividends or make other distributions or repurchase or redeem capital stock;
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prepay, redeem or repurchase certain debt;
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issue certain preferred stock or similar equity securities;
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make certain investments;
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incur additional indebtedness and guarantee indebtedness;
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enter into sale and leaseback transactions;
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enter into transactions with affiliates;
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alter the businesses we conduct;
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enter into agreements restricting our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends; and
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consolidate, merge or sell all or substantially all of our assets.
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In addition, the restrictive covenants in the agreement governing our revolving credit facility require us to maintain specified financial ratios and satisfy other financial condition tests. Our ability to meet those financial ratios and tests can be affected by events beyond our control, and we may be unable to meet them.
A breach of the covenants or restrictions under the agreement governing our revolving credit facility could result in an event of default under the applicable indebtedness. Such a default may allow the creditors to accelerate the related debt and may result in the acceleration of any other debt to which a cross-acceleration or cross-default provision applies. In addition, an event of default under the credit agreement governing our revolving credit facility would permit the lenders under our revolving credit facility to terminate all commitments to extend further credit under that facility. In the event our lenders or note holders accelerate the repayment of our borrowings, we and our subsidiaries may not have sufficient assets to repay that indebtedness. As a result of these restrictions, we may be:
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limited in how we conduct our business;
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unable to raise additional debt or equity financing to operate during general economic or business downturns; or
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unable to compete effectively or to take advantage of new business opportunities.
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The indenture governing our 2024 Notes also contains certain restrictive covenants that impose operating and financial restrictions on us and may limit our ability to engage in acts that may be in our long-term best interest, including restrictions on our ability to incur liens and to enter into sale and leaseback transactions.
These restrictions may affect our ability to grow in accordance with our strategy. In addition, our financial results, our substantial indebtedness and our credit ratings could adversely affect the availability and terms of our financing.
We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service all of our indebtedness and may be forced to take other actions to satisfy our obligations under our indebtedness, which may not be successful.
Our ability to make scheduled payments on or refinance our debt obligations depends on our financial condition and operating performance, which are subject to prevailing economic and competitive conditions and to certain financial, business, legislative, regulatory and other factors beyond our control. We may be unable to maintain a level of cash flows from operating activities sufficient to permit us to pay the principal, premium, if any, and interest on our indebtedness.
If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to fund our debt service obligations, we could face substantial liquidity problems and could be forced to reduce or delay investments and capital expenditures or to dispose of material assets or operations, seek additional debt or equity capital or restructure or refinance our indebtedness. We may not be able to effect any such alternative measures, if necessary, on commercially reasonable terms or at all and, even if successful, those alternative actions may not allow us to meet our scheduled debt service obligations. The agreement governing our revolving credit facility restricts our ability to dispose of assets and use the proceeds from those dispositions and may also restrict our ability to raise debt or equity capital to be used to repay other indebtedness when it becomes due. We may not be able to consummate those dispositions or to obtain proceeds in an amount sufficient to meet any debt service obligations then due.
In addition, we conduct a substantial portion of our operations through our subsidiaries, none of which are currently guarantors of our indebtedness. Accordingly, repayment of our indebtedness is dependent on the generation of cash flow by our subsidiaries and their ability to make such cash available to us, by dividend, debt repayment or otherwise. Unless they become guarantors of our indebtedness, our subsidiaries do not have any obligation to pay amounts due on our indebtedness or to make funds available for that purpose. Our subsidiaries may not be able to, or may not be permitted to, make distributions to enable us to make payments in respect of our indebtedness. Each subsidiary is a distinct legal entity, and, under certain circumstances, legal and contractual restrictions may limit our ability to obtain cash from our subsidiaries. While the agreement governing our revolving credit facility limits the ability of our subsidiaries to incur consensual restrictions on their ability to pay dividends or make other intercompany payments to us, these limitations are subject to qualifications and exceptions. In the event that we do not receive distributions from our subsidiaries, we may be unable to make required principal and interest payments on our indebtedness.
Our inability to generate sufficient cash flows to satisfy our debt obligations, or to refinance our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all, would materially and adversely affect our financial position and results of operations and our ability to satisfy our debt obligations.
If we cannot make scheduled payments on our debt, we will be in default and holders of our debt could declare all outstanding principal and interest to be due and payable, the lenders under our revolving credit facility could terminate their commitments to loan money and we could be forced into bankruptcy or liquidation. In addition, a material default on our indebtedness could suspend our eligibility to register securities using certain registration statement forms under SEC guidelines that permit incorporation by reference of substantial information regarding us, potentially hindering our ability to raise capital through the issuance of our securities and increasing our costs of registration.
Despite our current level of indebtedness, we and our subsidiaries may incur substantially more debt. This could further exacerbate the risks to our financial condition described above.
We and our subsidiaries may incur significant additional indebtedness in the future. Although the agreement governing our revolving credit facility contains restrictions on the incurrence of additional indebtedness, these restrictions are subject to a number of qualifications and exceptions, and the additional indebtedness incurred in compliance with these restrictions could be substantial. If we incur any additional indebtedness that ranks equally with the 2024 Notes, then subject to any collateral arrangements we may enter into, the holders of that debt will be entitled to share ratably in any proceeds distributed in connection with any insolvency, liquidation, reorganization, dissolution or other winding up of our company.
Our variable rate indebtedness subjects us to interest rate risk, which could cause our debt service obligations to increase significantly.
Borrowings under our revolving credit facility are at variable rates of interest and expose us to interest rate risk. If interest rates were to increase, our debt service obligations on our variable rate indebtedness would increase even though the amount borrowed remained the same, and our net income and cash flows, including cash available for servicing our indebtedness, would correspondingly decrease. Assuming all loans were fully drawn and we were to fully exercise our right to increase borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility, each quarter point change in interest rates would result in a $1.5 million change in annual interest expense on our indebtedness under our revolving credit facility. In the future, we may enter into interest rate swaps that involve the exchange of floating for fixed rate interest payments in order to reduce interest rate volatility. However, we may not maintain interest rate swaps with respect to all of our variable rate indebtedness, and any swaps we enter into may not fully mitigate our interest rate risk.
Our revolving credit facility utilizes LIBOR or various alternative methods to calculate the amount of accrued interest on any borrowings. Regulators in certain jurisdictions including the United Kingdom and the United States have announced the desire to phase out the use of LIBOR by the end of 2021. The transition from LIBOR to a new replacement benchmark is uncertain at this time and the consequences of such developments cannot be entirely predicted, but could result in an increase in the cost of our borrowings under our existing credit facility and any future borrowings.
Various factors could increase our future borrowing costs or reduce our access to capital, including a lowering or withdrawal of the ratings assigned to our 2024 Notes by credit rating agencies.
We may in the future seek additional financing for a variety of reasons, and our future borrowing costs and access to capital could be affected by factors including the condition of the debt and equity markets, the condition of the economy generally, prevailing interest rates, our level of indebtedness and our business and financial condition. In addition, the 2024 Notes currently have an investment grade credit rating, and any credit rating assigned could be lowered or withdrawn entirely by a credit rating agency if, in that credit rating agency’s judgment, future circumstances relating to the basis of the credit rating, such as adverse changes, so warrant. Consequently, real or anticipated changes in our credit ratings will generally affect the market value of the 2024 Notes. Any future lowering of the credit ratings of the 2024 Notes likely would make it more difficult or more expensive for us to obtain additional debt financing.
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
None.