Apple supplier IQE’s CEO departs, finance chief takes interim charge

(Reuters) -British semiconductor wafer maker IQE said on Tuesday its CEO Americo Lemos had left the company with immediate effect and finance chief Jutta Meier would take charge in the interim.

Shares in the company, whose ‘epi-wafers’ are used in the Apple iPhone’s facial recognition sensors, fell as much as 15% on the news.

Lemos succeeded IQE founder Drew Nelson in 2022, and was previously responsible for developing the company’s New York-based peer GlobalFoundries’ business in Asia Pacific and China – major regional markets for IQE.

IQE has been navigating a challenging financial environment amid a sluggish recovery in the semiconductor sector and the growing significance of supply chain security over cost, amplified by rising U.S.-China tensions.

There had been growing investor frustration with the gap between the big vision that Americo had sold and the current reality,” Harvey Robinson, Panmure Liberum analyst, said.

IQE shares fell to a more than 10-year low of 12.32 pence in early trading. They have dropped about 71% since Lemos’ appointment.

Meier has more than two decades of experience in the semiconductor sector and was most recently senior finance director at Intel’s Foundry Services business.

Phil Smith, chair of IQE since 2019, will step down and Mark Cubitt, who was named the chair-elect earlier this month, will become executive chair, the company said.

Their (Mark and Jutta) immediate priorities will include a focus on executing on the near-term pipeline as well as cash generation across the Group and on unlocking embedded value by pursuing the IPO of our Taiwan business,” Phil Smith, the outgoing chairman, said.

In September IQE forecast annual profit at the lower end of market expectations as some of its markets were slower to recover from a supply glut.

In July, IQE said it planned to file for an IPO of its Taiwanese business on the local stock exchange, while retaining control of the unit.

(Reporting by Yamini Kalia and DhanushVignesh Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Susan Fenton)