Company Update (NASDAQ:MU): Micron Technology, Inc. Names Manish Bhatia as EVP of Global Operations
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) announced the appointment today of Manish Bhatia as executive vice president of Global Operations. He will report directly to Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO.
Bhatia will be responsible for driving Micron’s end-to-end operations, including the company’s global manufacturing fab footprint, back-end assembly and test operations, supply chain planning and fulfillment, procurement, quality and IT teams. This new Global Operations organization aims to enhance Micron’s agility and responsiveness to meet customer requirements through a tighter coordination and alignment of these critical business functions.
Bhatia has over 22 years of engineering and operations experience, including the last 17 years in the semiconductor industry. He most recently served as the executive vice president of Silicon Operations at Western Digital Corporation. Prior to that, Bhatia held several executive roles at SanDisk Corporation and was the company’s EVP of Worldwide Operations when it was acquired by Western Digital. Prior to SanDisk, Bhatia’s career included positions at Matrix Semiconductor, McKinsey & Company and Saint Gobain Corporation.
“Manish brings extensive executive experience and a deep understanding of the critical operational needs for successfully driving a complex semiconductor business,“ said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of Micron. “Manish’s leadership will help us elevate our operations to best-in-class performance and enable Micron to capitalize on our leading-edge technologies and product solutions.”
Bhatia earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in business administration from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, which he attended as a Leaders for Manufacturing fellow.
Shares of Micron Technology are currently trading at $41.33, up $0.93 or 2.30%. MU has a 1-year high of $42.07 and a 1-year low of $16.45. The stock's 50-day moving average is $36.09 and its 200-day moving average is $31.15.
On the ratings front, MU stock has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. In a report issued on October 13, Loop Capital Markets analyst Betsy Van Hees maintained a Buy rating on MU, with a price target of $47, which represents a potential upside of 16% from where the stock is currently trading. On October 12, Barclays' Blayne Curtis reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and has a price target of $60.
According to TipRanks.com, which ranks over 7,500 financial analysts and bloggers to gauge the performance of their past recommendations, Betsy Van Hees and Blayne Curtis have a yearly average return of 24.7% and 16.3% respectively. Hees has a success rate of 73% and is ranked #97 out of 4697 analysts, while Curtis has a success rate of 67% and is ranked #277.
Sentiment on the street is mostly bullish on MU stock. Out of 23 analysts who cover the stock, 21 suggest a Buy rating and 2 recommend to Hold the stock. The 12-month average price target assigned to the stock is $50.05, which represents a potential upside of 24% from where the stock is currently trading.
Micron Technology engages in the designing, and building memory and semiconductor technologies. It operates through the following segments: Compute and Networking Business Unit, Storage Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, Embedded Business Unit. The Compute and Networking Business Unit segment includes memory products sold into compute, networking, graphics, and cloud server markets. The Storage Business Unit segment are the products sold into enterprise, client, cloud, and removable storage. The Mobile Business Unit segment includes memory products sold into smart phone, tablet, and other mobile-device markets. The Embedded Business Unit segment is comprised of memory products sold into automotive, industrial, connected home, and consumer electronics markets.
