Following the resignation of CFO Thomas Seifert, AMD's stock fell about 10 percent in Tuesday trading and landed at $3.62, a 41-month low. The market capitalization is now $2.56 billion and below the market capitalization of GameStop, which passed AMD today with $2.77 billion. GameStop is now listed #486 on the S&P 500 list, while AMD fell to #487.
The declining market cap is now approaching the total debt volume of the company, which stood at $2.02 billion at the end of the second quarter, with total current contract obligations of $4.2 billion. Last month, AMD was required to make a $485 million payment - the outstanding principal amount on $1.5 billion worth of 5.75 percent convertible senior notes that were issued in August of 2007 to overcome financial problems that were tied to the processor price war with Intel as well as the aftershock of the ATI acquisition.
Seifert mentioned this payment in the Q2 earnings call and said that he felt comfortable making the payment from the $1.58 billion cash reserve of the company, but noted that the company is monitoring other "potential opportunities" due to the weak economy, which would require AMD to keep more cash on hand. The company did not update this statement so far - a cash payment would send the company deep into the red for Q3, but it may have decided to refinance the debt.
AMD faces the next big cash payment of $225 million to Globalfoundries in Q1 2013. There are several other debt items that, however, will not be due until 2015 and later. There will be a $580 million payment due in 2015, a $500 million payment in 2017 and another $500 million in 2020.
With the economy weakening, PC sales tumbling and the stock value declining, financial analysts are more than likely to pay attention to AMD's debt position.
