History
The Story
Figures converted from HKD at historical FX rates — see data/company.json.fx_rates. Ratios, margins, multiples, share counts, dates, and names are unitless and unchanged.
Between 2022 and 2026, ASMPT's story turned on a single bet — that thermo-compression bonding (TCB) for AI logic and memory would become the franchise — and on a slow, late admission that the rest of the portfolio was a drag, not a hedge. The "unique broad-based portfolio" line of SEMI plus SMT, repeated for three years as counter-cyclical strength, was quietly retired in 2025 as the company began divesting AAMI, NEXX, and put SMT under "Strategic Options Assessment." Quarterly revenue landed near the mid-point most quarters, but the most prominent forward promise — hybrid bonding contributing "meaningfully from 2023" — slipped four years and was rephrased as "co-existence" with TCB. Credibility today rests on TCB execution: record bookings and +146% TCB revenue in 2025.
1. The Narrative Arc
The current strategic chapter began in May 2020, when CFO Robin Ng succeeded Lee Wai Kwong as Group CEO after Lee's 13-year tenure. In June 2022, the renamed ASMPT (from ASM Pacific Technology) shipped its first major TCB orders and entered a brutal downcycle the same quarter. The arc since is the company learning, slowly, that broad-based is not the same as resilient, and that AI demand was its only growth engine worth defending.
Anchor dates for every other tab: current CEO start = May 2020 (Robin Ng); current strategic chapter start = June 2022 (rebrand and pivot to advanced packaging as the growth franchise). Robin Ng announced retirement in February 2026; successor search is ongoing.
2. What Management Emphasized — and Then Stopped Emphasizing
Three themes ride the entire 2022–2025 period almost untouched: advanced packaging, TCB, and "structural" AI/HPC demand. Three others fade conspicuously: AAMI, "broad-based portfolio," and automotive electrification. Once AAMI, NEXX, and SMT stopped being strategic, the words went away.
Topic emphasis 2022–2025 (1 = barely mentioned, 5 = front-and-centre).
Themes quietly dropped: "AAMI on an accelerated growth path" (Q2 2022) became silence by 2024 and divestment in November 2025. "Twin engines of growth" through M&A (the 2014 NEXX acquisition was the marquee example) gave way to selling NEXX to Applied Materials for $120M in May 2026. "Broad-based portfolio" — used as a defence in every downturn quarter from 2022 to 2024 — does not appear in the 2025 chairman's letter.
3. Risk Evolution
The risk discussion moved through four distinct phases. 2022 was COVID-and-Ukraine: supply chains, logistics, China lockdowns. 2023 was the downcycle itself: consumer demand, inventory digestion. 2024 introduced ownership uncertainty — the Rule 3.7 takeover talks (with KKR rumoured) ran from October 14 to November 11, 2024, ended without a deal, and the stock fell more than 20% from its rumour-driven peak. 2025 added tariffs and portfolio-execution risk as the divestiture programme began.
Risk emphasis 2022–2025 (1 = absent, 5 = headline concern).
Customer concentration is the cleanest "newly visible" risk. The top five customers were under 14% of revenue in 1H 2022, ~20% in 1H 2023, 16% in 1H 2024 — and 24.8% in 1H 2025 as TCB orders concentrated demand into a handful of HBM and foundry customers. That is the price of the AI bet.
4. How They Handled Bad News
ASMPT does not hide misses; it dresses them. Three patterns repeat: blame the cycle, point to a forward proxy that is working, and let dropped promises drift out of the script.
5. Guidance Track Record
Quarterly revenue guidance was credible: ASMPT hit the mid-point or beat in most quarters from Q3 2022 onward, with one notable miss (Q2 2022). The bigger credibility tests were the multi-year promises — hybrid bonding timing, AP growth, and TCB market share. AP and TCB delivered; HB did not.
Credibility score
Why 7 of 10. Quarterly guidance was reliable through a brutal cycle — no over-promising on revenue, no restated earnings. The dividend policy held; the balance sheet stayed in net cash. Marks come off for two things: (1) the hybrid-bonding timeline slipped by more than three years and was rephrased rather than retracted; and (2) the "broad-based portfolio" defence was repeated for three years before being reversed in 2025 with the AAMI, NEXX, and SMT programme. A buyer who took 2022–2024 framing literally would not have predicted the 2025 portfolio surgery. The Rule 3.7 talks that ended without commentary in November 2024 also count — investors got a 20% drawdown and no explanation. The reset is being executed with clarity now, but the credibility cost was paid earlier.
6. What the Story Is Now
Simpler: ASMPT is becoming a focused advanced-packaging company centred on TCB for AI logic and HBM, with mainstream wire/die bonders attached, and everything else (SMT, NEXX, AAMI materials JV) being sold or evaluated for sale. The TCB franchise has been validated — record bookings two years running, +146% TCB revenue in 2025, Q1 2026 group revenue +30% YoY, book-to-bill 1.43.
More stretched: customer concentration is rising (top 5 = ~25% of revenue, versus 14% three years ago), the business is now bet on a small number of foundry, IDM, and HBM customers, and the new chairman has launched a portfolio reset while the long-time CEO is leaving in 2026 without a named successor. What replaces the broad-based hedge is a cleaner but more concentrated AI-cycle equity.
What to believe: TCB leadership through 2027 (the $1B TAM target looks credible at current trajectory); margin recovery as AP mix rises; balance sheet ($421M net cash at end-2025).
What to discount: any return of the "broad-based portfolio = stability" framing; near-term hybrid-bonding revenue; SMT contribution to long-term earnings (likely sold).
What to watch: the CEO succession, the SMT options outcome, and whether ASM International (the 25% Dutch parent, under activist pressure) sells its stake — any of which could re-write the ownership picture again, much as the 2024 Rule 3.7 talks tried to.