Chipmaker Xilinx Names New CFO Amid Rare Slip In Sales

Chipmaker Xilinx, which posted its first quarterly revenue decline in four years recently, named on Thursday a veteran tech executive as its new finance chief.

The San Jose-based company named Brice Hill CFO, effective immediately, according to a Xilinx statement. Hill arrives at the chipmaker after a 25-year stint at rival Intel, where he had filled the CFO and chief operating officer posts since 2015. Before Intel, Hill held various finance positions at General Motors.

“Brice brings tremendous operational and strategic experience and leadership to our executive team,” said Victor Peng, Xilinx’s chief executive officer, in a statement. Hill replaces Lorenzo Flores, who announced his departure in September for a post with Toshiba Memory, according to a Xilinx spokeswoman.

Xilinx saw sales slip 10% during its fiscal third quarter, which ended in December, compared to the same period in 2018. The company has grappled with a slowdown in the rollout of 5G networks, trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and U.S. restrictions on exports to Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Sales at the company, which has a market cap of $21 billion, last retreated in the 2015 December quarter with a 4.6% slide, according to FactSet. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to cut 7% of its workforce. Xilinx estimates the move will result in a pre-tax charge between $25 million and $30 million to severance payouts.

“While Xilinx’s March 2020 quarter guidance does show an expectation of some recovery from the sharp drop that occurred in its December quarter, the guidance range was substantially below expectations and implies another (year-over-year) drop in March,” said David Wong, an analyst with Instinet Nomura, in a research note in January. The company estimated that it would see sales between $750 million and $780 million for the March quarter. So far this year, shares of the company have slipped 15% and closed on Thursday at $83.11.