Record GAAP and Non-GAAP Gross Margins

SMART Global Holdings, Inc. (“SGH” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: SGH) today reported financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2024.

On November 29, 2023, we completed our previously announced divestiture of an 81% interest in our SMART Brazil operations. Our SMART Brazil operations are classified as discontinued operations in the accompanying financial information for all periods presented. The following discussion relates to our continuing operations, which exclude SMART Brazil.

First Quarter Fiscal 2024 Highlights for Continuing Operations

• Net sales of $274.2 million, down 30.0% versus the year-ago quarter
• Record GAAP gross margin of 30.2%, up 160 basis points versus the year-ago quarter
• Record Non-GAAP gross margin of 33.3%, up 200 basis points versus the year-ago quarter
• GAAP EPS of $(0.23) versus $(0.08) in the year-ago quarter
• Non-GAAP EPS of $0.24 versus $0.75 in the year-ago quarter

“We are pleased with the progress we are making on our transformation journey, marked by the strategic divestiture of our Brazil business and another quarter of record non-GAAP gross margins reflecting the continued shift to higher value enterprise solutions,” commented CEO Mark Adams. “Additionally, we ended our first quarter with record cash and short term-investments of $553 million, allowing us to continue investing strategically in AI, developing products based on advanced memory technologies and strengthening CreeLED’s portfolio to enable future long term growth,” concluded Adams.

Share Repurchase Authorization

On January 8, 2024, the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors approved a $75 million share repurchase authorization, bringing total share repurchase authorizations over the last two years to $150 million. Under the share repurchase authorization, the Company may repurchase its outstanding ordinary shares from time to time through open market purchases, privately-negotiated transactions or otherwise. The share repurchase authorization has no expiration date, may be suspended or terminated by the Audit Committee at any time and does not obligate the Company to acquire any amount of ordinary shares.

Quarterly Financial Results of Continuing Operations

Business Outlook

As of January 9, 2024, SGH is providing the following financial outlook for its continuing operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2024:

First Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast Details

SGH will hold a conference call and webcast to discuss the first quarter of fiscal 2024 results and related matters today, January 9, 2024, at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time). Interested parties may access the call by dialing +1-833-470-1428 in the U.S. or +1-929-526-1599 from international locations, using the access code 064997. The earnings presentation and a live webcast of the conference call can be accessed from the Company’s investor relations website (https://ir.smartm.com/investors/default.aspx) where they will remain available for approximately one year.

Use of Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning or regarding future events and the future financial and operating performance of SGH; statements regarding the extent and timing of and expectations regarding SGH’s future revenues and expenses and customer demand; statements regarding SGH’s strategic investments and priorities; statements regarding long-term effective tax rates; and statements regarding the business and financial outlook for the next fiscal quarter described under “Business Outlook” above.

These statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements often use words such as “anticipate,” “target,” “expect,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “goal,” “believe,” “could,” and other words of similar meaning. Forward-looking statements provide SGH’s current expectations or forecasts of future events, circumstances, results or aspirations and are subject to a number of significant risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of SGH’s control, including but not limited to, global business and economic conditions and growth trends in technology industries, our customer markets and various geographic regions; uncertainties in the geopolitical environment; the ability to manage our cost structure; disruptions in our operations or supply chain; changes in trade regulations or adverse developments in international trade relations and agreements; changes in currency exchange rates; overall information technology spending; appropriations for government spending; the success of our strategic initiatives including additional investments in new products and additional capacity; acquisitions of companies or technologies and the failure to successfully integrate and operate them or customers’ negative reactions to them; incurring unanticipated costs following the completion of the sale of our SMART Brazil business; issues, delays or complications in integrating the operations of Stratus Technologies; limitations on or changes in the availability of supply of materials and components; fluctuations in material costs; the temporary or volatile nature of pricing trends in memory or elsewhere; deterioration in customer relationships; our dependence on a select number of customers and the timing and volume of customer orders; production or manufacturing difficulties; competitive factors; technological changes; difficulties with, or delays in, the introduction of new products; slowing or contraction of growth in the LED market; changes to applicable tax regimes or rates; prices for the end products of our customers; strikes or labor disputes; deterioration in or loss of relations with any of our limited number of key vendors; the inability to maintain or expand government business; and the continuing availability of borrowings under term loans and revolving lines of credit and our ability to raise capital through debt or equity financings.

These and other risks, uncertainties and factors are described in greater detail under the sections titled “Risk Factors,” “Critical Accounting Estimates,” “Results of Operations,” “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” and “Liquidity and Capital Resources” contained in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and the Company’s other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, such risks, uncertainties and factors as outlined above and in such filings do not constitute all risks, uncertainties and factors that could cause actual results of SGH to be materially different from such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that the Company makes in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, SGH does not undertake to update the forward-looking statements contained in this press release to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that may arise after the date that the forward-looking statements were made.

Statement Regarding Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

SGH management uses non-GAAP measures to supplement SGH’s financial results under GAAP. Management uses these measures to analyze its operations and make decisions as to future operational plans and believes that this supplemental non-GAAP information is useful to investors in analyzing and assessing the Company’s past and future operating performance. These non-GAAP measures exclude certain items, such as share-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets (consisting of amortization of developed technology, customer relationships, trademarks/trade names and backlog acquired in connection with business combinations), acquisition-related inventory adjustments, acquisition-related expenses, restructure charges and integration expenses, impairment of goodwill, changes in the fair value of contingent consideration, gains (losses) from changes in currency exchange rates, amortization of debt discount and other costs, gain (loss) on extinguishment of debt, other infrequent or unusual items and related tax effects and other tax adjustments. While amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets is excluded, the revenues from acquired companies is reflected in the Company’s non-GAAP measures and these intangible assets contribute to revenue generation. Management believes the presentation of operating results that exclude certain items provides useful supplemental information to investors and facilitates the analysis of the Company’s core operating results and comparison of operating results across reporting periods. Management also uses adjusted EBITDA, which represents GAAP net income (loss), adjusted for net interest expense, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization expense, share-based compensation expense, acquisition-related inventory adjustments, acquisition-related expenses, restructure charges and integration expenses, impairment of goodwill, changes in the fair value of contingent consideration, gain (loss) on extinguishment of debt and other infrequent or unusual items.

Beginning in 2024, for our non-GAAP reporting, we are utilizing a long-term projected non-GAAP effective tax rate of 28%, which includes the tax impact of pre-tax non-GAAP adjustments and reflects currently available information as well as other factors and assumptions. While we expect to use this normalized non-GAAP effective tax rate through 2024, this long-term non-GAAP effective tax rate may be subject to change for a variety of reasons, including the rapidly evolving global tax environment, significant changes in our geographic earnings mix or changes to our strategy or business operations. Our GAAP effective tax can vary significantly from quarter to quarter based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, discrete items which are recorded in the period they occur, the tax effects of certain items of income or expense, significant changes in our geographic earnings mix or changes to our strategy or business operations. We are unable to predict the timing and amounts of these items, which could significantly impact our GAAP effective tax rate, and therefore we are unable to reconcile our forward-looking non-GAAP effective tax rate measure to our GAAP effective tax rate.

Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP, as they exclude important information about SGH’s financial results, as noted above. The presentation of these adjusted amounts varies from amounts presented in accordance with GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to amounts reported by other companies. In addition, adjusted EBITDA does not purport to represent cash flow provided by, or used for, operating activities in accordance with GAAP and should not be used as a measure of liquidity. Investors are encouraged to review the “Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures” tables below.

About SMART Global Holdings – SGH

At SGH, we design, build, deploy and manage high-performance, high-availability enterprise solutions that help our customers solve for the future. Across our computing, memory, and LED lines of business, we focus on serving our customers by providing deep technical knowledge and expertise, custom design engineering, build-to-order flexibility and a commitment to best-in-class quality.

Learn more about us at SGHcorp.com.

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