After sinking to a record low of $1.19 early in January, down almost 70 percent in just the last 12 months, shares in the troubled electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company strengthened Monday, Jan. 14, after it reported that fiscal-2008 first-quarter earnings per share before charges would "meet or exceed [the] Wall Street consensus" estimate.

Revenue for the three months ended Dec. 29, 2007, will be approximately $2.53 billion, or in the lower end of its $2.5 billion to $2.65 billion guidance, according to Sanmina-SCI, which was finalizing the quarter's closing at the time of the announcement.

Investors would have greeted such a less-than-robust performance from any other major technology company with dismay but readily gave Sanmina-SCI a pass because of its troubled history.

A major EMS provider with more than $10 billion in annual revenue and a healthy roster of top-tier OEM customers, Sanmina-SCI is stuck in a multiyear struggle to show profit and has paid a hefty price in equity market valuation for perceived operational problems at key divisions. Its stock price has been on a downward spiral since climbing in August 2000 to a high of $59 at the height of the last telecommunications market boom.

Since then, the company has engaged in numerous reorganization efforts to improve its profitability and its image with investors. Last August, Jure Sola, Sanmina-SCI's chairman and CEO, hired Joe Bronson, an industry veteran with extensive manufacturing and financial experience at companies such as Applied Materials and Form Factor, as president and chief operating officer, to help pull the company out of the tailspin.

In an interview with EE Times in late 2007, Bronson admitted that Sanmina-SCI has a poor rating in asset management but insisted the company has a strong global brand and only needs to improve its efficiency ratios while increasing sales from new markets. Here are excerpts from that discussion with EE Times business editor Bolaji Ojo:

Balance sheet

The company's balance sheet is not in good shape because of the significant amount of debt vis-'-vis current assets and working capital. We have a significant plan to reduce the debt through the generation of cash flow from operations and potential asset sales. However, there is no liquidity problem that inhibits the company's ability to operate. The company also has a $500 million revolving credit agreement from a group of banks led by Citigroup and Bank of America. I have met with them on two or three occasions and they are very pleased with the budget we've shown them and the plans we have for debt reduction and profitability improvement. I believe those banks will hang with us. The second problem we have is profitability. The EMS business runs pretty well and is pretty close to the profitability level of any other contract manufacturing company, including Flextronics and Hon Hai. What's troubling for the company has been the components business. It has been underperforming for the last three or four years.

Revenue, profit

Part of what I would hopefully bring to the company is a vision of how to grow in new and existing markets such as semiconductor capital equipment, natural resources, solar energy, oil and gas.