SEC Company Response from SemiLEDs Corp (LEDS) (CIK 0001333822) (LEDS) — Sep 14, 2010
SemiLEDs Corp (LEDS) (CIK 0001333822)
Date: Sept. 14, 2010 · CIK: 0001333822 · Accession: 0001104659-10-048545
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 333-168624
Referenced dates: September 2, 2010
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CORRESP 1 filename1.htm ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE 奧睿律師事務所 43RD FLOOR, GLOUCESTER TOWER THE LANDMARK 15 QUEEN’S ROAD CENTRAL HONG KONG TEL 852-2218-9100 FAX 852-2218-9200 WWW.ORRICK.COM September 14, 2010 VIA EDGAR AND HAND DELIVERY U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Corporate Finance 100 F Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20549 Mail Stop Number 3030 Attn: Russel Mancuso, Branch Chief, Legal Gabriel Eckstein Kevin Vaughn, Branch Chief, Accounting Tara Harkins Re: SemiLEDs Corporation Registration Statement on Form S-1 Registration No. 333-168624 Ladies and Gentlemen: This letter is being filed in response to your letter dated September 2, 2010 (the “Staff Letter”), setting forth comments relating to the Registration Statement on Form S-1 (the “Form S-1” or “Registration Statement”) of SemiLEDs Corporation (“SemiLEDs” or the “Company”) filed on August 6, 2010 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission” or the “Staff”) and Amendment No. 1 to Form S-1 filed on August 9, 2010 (“Amendment No. 1”). The Company previously filed Amendment No. 1 for the sole purpose of fixing a formatting error and did not make any other changes to the initially filed Registration Statement (except to reflect that it was an amended filing). The Company is concurrently filing today with the Commission Amendment No. 2 to Form S-1 (“Amendment No. 2”). For your reference, a copy of Amendment No. 2, together with a marked copy of Amendment No. 2 indicating changes from Amendment No. 1, are enclosed with this letter. PARTNERS: PHOEBUS K.F. CHU · ELIZABETH A. COLE · ANDREW J. DALE · MARK J. LEE · EDWIN K.C. LUK · ROBERT S. PÉ · NEAL A. STENDER · MICHELLE A.M. TAYLOR SOOK YOUNG YEU PARTNERS, ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE LLP, REGISTERED FOREIGN LAWYERS: DAVID K. CHO (CALIFORNIA) · DAVID R. HALPERIN (NEW YORK) · MICHAEL T. HAWORTH (CALIFORNIA) · MAURICE L.S. HOO (CALIFORNIA) · ALLEN T.C. SHYU (ILLINOIS) CHRISTOPHER H. STEPHENS (NEW YORK) · JAMES M. TERVO (CALIFORNIA) The Staff’s comments are repeated below, followed by the Company’s response and a summary of the responsive actions taken. We have included for your convenience specific page numbers in Amendment No. 2 that have revisions to or insertions of language which seeks to address the Staff’s comment. CONFIDENTIAL TREATMENT REQUEST Please note that the Company has redacted certain information on page 31 of this letter. We hereby respectfully request on behalf of the Company, pursuant to Rule 83 of the Commission’s Rules on Information and Requests, 17 C.F.R., Section 200.83 (“Rule 83”) that portions of the Company’s response to comment 85 be kept confidential, not be made part of any public record and not be disclosed to any person as it contains confidential information of the Company. In accordance with Rule 83(d)(1), if any person (including any governmental employee who is not an employee of the Commission) should request access to or an opportunity to inspect this letter, we request that we be immediately notified of any such request, be furnished with a copy of all written materials pertaining to such request (including, but not limited to, the request itself) and be given at least 10 business days advance notice of any intended release so that the Company may, if deemed necessary or appropriate, pursue any remedies available to it. In such an event, we request that you telephone Mark J. Lee, Esq. of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP at +852-2218-9118 rather than rely upon the United States mail for such notice. Amendment No.1 to Registration Statement on Form S-1 Prospectus 1. Please confirm that any preliminary prospectus you circulate will include all non-Rule 430A information. This includes the price range and related information based on a bona fide estimate of the public offering price within that range. We may have further comments after you include pricing information and related disclosure. The Company confirms that any preliminary prospectus that it circulates will include all required information, including the price range and related information based on a bona fide estimate of the public offering price within that range, except for information that is permissible to be omitted pursuant to Rule 430A. 2. We note your disclosure with respect to China SemiLEDs. Please revise to place greater emphasis on disclosure related to the current stage of China SemiLEDs’ development rather than focusing on your future aspirations for China SemiLEDs. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has revised the disclosure with respect to China SemiLEDs to emphasize that it is currently in an early development stage and has not yet commenced operations, on pages 1, 5, 27 and 84. 2 Prospectus Summary, page 1 3. Revise the opening paragraph of your summary to disclose your net revenues and net income (loss) for the most recently completed fiscal year and the applicable stub period. In addition, please disclose that you have received a going concern opinion from your auditors. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has added a new last paragraph of “Prospectus Summary — Company Overview” on page 1 and “Business — Company Overview” on page 84 to disclose its revenues and net income (loss) for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2009 and the nine month period ended May 31, 2010. The Company believes such disclosure is appropriate to be made in the first few paragraphs of the “Prospectus Summary”, but that including such information in the first paragraph overstates the significance of such results. The Company also included in this new last paragraph disclosure as to when it was incorporated and first began selling products. With respect to the Staff’s comment to add disclosure regarding the Company’s going concern modification in the opinion from its auditors, the Company notes that such disclosure is currently included in “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Business” on page 10, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Liquidity and Capital Resources” on page 75 and in the F-pages. The Company believes that disclosure in the “Prospectus Summary” would place undue prominence on the going concern modification in the opinion because the opinion does not give effect to the receipt by the Company of the net proceeds of the proposed offering. The Company believes and has confirmed with its independent audit firm that once it has received the proceeds of the offering, a going concern modification in the opinion will not be necessary. The Company respectfully submits that either the Company completes the offering — at which time the going concern issue modification is no longer necessary — or the Company does not complete the offering and the going concern issue is irrelevant with respect to the reader’s assessment of whether to invest in the Company’s common stock in the offering. 4. Regarding the industry and market statistics that you cite in your document, please also tell us: · how you confirmed that the data used in your registration statement reflects the most recent available information; The Company has cited data and market statistics in the Registration Statement from three independent sources: (i) Strategies Unlimited, (ii) the Freedonia Group and (iii) the U.S. Department of Energy. Strategies Unlimited and the Freedonia Group are independent market research firms. The Strategies Unlimited data comes from its March 2010 report. The Freedonia Group data comes from its September 2009 and April 2010 reports. The U.S. Department of Energy data comes from a report prepared for it in March 2010. The Company has confirmed with each of the three sources that the data is from the most recent available information provided by the respective source. In addition, the Company believes that these three sources are often cited for various LED and lighting technology data and information. The Company will update the data in the 3 Registration Statement if more recent data becomes available from Strategies Unlimited, the Freedonia Group or the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to requesting effectiveness of the Registration Statement, the Company will confirm with these sources that the Registration Statement contains the most recent available data from the respective source. · whether all of the data is publicly available; The report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy is publicly available. Neither the Strategies Unlimited report nor the Freedonia Group report is publicly available. However, the Strategies Unlimited and the Freedonia Group reports may be obtained by any person for a charge. · whether you paid for the compilation of any of the data; The Company did not pay Strategies Unlimited, the Freedonia Group or the U.S. Department of Energy to compile any of the data. However, the Company paid Strategies Unlimited for access to its report and the use of the data in the report in the Registration Statement. The Company intends to pay the Freedonia Group for its reports and the use of the data in the reports in the Registration Statement. · whether any data was prepared for your use in the registration statement; and The Company advises that none of the market data was prepared for its use in the Registration Statement. · whether the authors of the data consented to your use of such data in the registration statement. The Company has obtained consents from Strategies Unlimited, the Freedonia Group and the authors of the U.S. Department of Energy reports to include data from their respective reports in the Registration Statement. If you were affiliated with the preparation of any of the data, please ensure that your disclosure clearly indicates the nature of all such affiliations. The Company advises that it was not and is not currently affiliated with the preparation of any of the data from these sources. 5. We note that you rely heavily on industry and technical terms. We note, as examples, the phrase “epitaxy materials on sapphire” in the third paragraph on page 1 and your reference to a “vertical structure” in the first bullet point on page 2. Please revise, where appropriate, to provide a description of your business that is understandable to a person unfamiliar with your industry. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has revised the disclosure in the “Prospectus Summary” section of the Registration Statement and throughout the rest of the Registration Statement in an effort to describe the business in less technical terms. For example, the Company has made the following revisions: 4 · on pages 1, 50 and 84, the previous disclosure related to “epitaxy materials on sapphire” has been revised to state “We grow semiconductor material layers on a sapphire wafer, or substrate, via a process known as epitaxial growth” to describe what epitaxy materials are and how they are placed on sapphire; · On pages 1 and 84, the references to “vertical structure” have been expanded to a “vertical LED structure that generally consists of multiple, vertically-stacked epitaxial layers, a silver reflector layer and a copper alloy base”; and · the third paragraph of the “Company Overview” section on pages 1 and 84 has been revised to provide a longer, but less technical, description of the Company’s capabilities and know-how. Our Strategy, page 2 6. Please avoid use of shortened names where the meaning is not clear from context. For example, we note your use of MOCVD in the fourth bullet point on page 3. Refer to sample comment 5 in Updated Staff Legal Bulletin No. 7 (June 7, 1999) available on the Commission’s web site. The Staff’s comment is duly noted. The Company has revised the disclosure to give the full name of “MOCVD” where it first appears in “Prospectus Summary — Our Strategy” on page 3 and has included a brief description of an “MOCVD reactor” in “Business” on page 86. In addition, the Company has given the full name of “GaN” in “Risk Factors” on page 21, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” on page 50 and “Business” on page 84. 7. Refer to the second-to-last bullet point on page 3. With a view toward clarified disclosure, please tell us what you mean by “build scale” In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has revised the disclosure on pages 4 and 88 to clarify that it plans to enter into acquisitions and joint ventures to increase its manufacturing capacity. 8. We note your claim that you are on the forefront of innovation. Please provide objective support for this claim and any other unsubstantiated claims in the registration statement. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has revised the disclosure on pages 3 and 86 to state that it is the Company’s belief that it is on the forefront of innovation of LED chip and LED component technologies. The Company’s belief is based on: · its ability to produce LED chips that when packaged are capable of providing efficacies of greater than 100 lumens per watt, which has been independently verified. Based on public announcements by leading LED industry companies and data in LED industry sources, the Company believes that it is one of a few companies that is manufacturing LED chips capable of providing greater than 100 lumens per watt; 5 · the Company’s belief that it is one of a few companies that recycles and reuses sapphire wafers in the production of LED chips, which provides it significant manufacturing cost savings; and · its use of a vertical copper-alloy chip structure, which the Company believes results in higher efficacy than the lateral sapphire-based structure used by most manufacturers of sapphire-based LED devices. Corporate Information and Structure, page 4 9. Please consider providing a graphic illustrating your corporate structure. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has included a corporate structure chart on page 5. 10. Please revise the second paragraph of this section to reconcile your statement that your operations are located in Taiwan SemiLEDs with your statement that the majority of your LED components are sold through Helios Crew Corporation. In addition, please reconcile the former statement with your statement in the third paragraph that you have no material operations to date. The Company respectfully confirms to the Staff that substantially all its operations are located in Taiwan SemiLEDs. Taiwan SemiLEDs manufactures LED chips and packages those chips into LED components. For marketing reasons, Taiwan SemiLEDs sells a majority of those LED components to Helios Crew Corporation, which in turn re-sells those LED components to customers. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company has revised the disclosure on pages 50 and 91 to clarify the relationship between Taiwan SemiLEDs and Helios Crew Corporation. The Company respectfully submits that the statement in the third paragraph of this section refers to its joint venture entities, China SemiLEDs, SILQ and SS Optoelectronics, each of which has not had any material operations to date. The Company has revised the disclosure on page 5 to clarify this and believes that the addition of the corporate structure chart, added in response to comment 9, will further assist to clarify the disclosure. Risk Factors, page 9 11. We note that your risk factor disclo