AMD Pulls Out of Conferences; Shares Fall

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a leading maker of microprocessors for personal computers, dropped sharply after company executives abruptly and without explanation canceled their presentations at two financial analyst conferences, one here today and another in New York next week.

Industry watchers speculated that the move may be related to Tuesday’s resignation of Richard Forte from his post as chief executive of AMD’s Vantis Corp. subsidiary, a maker of customized processors. AMD has indicated that it may sell Vantis or spin it off.

“This could have been a forced resignation, given that the [Vantis] division has had no revenue growth” for a while, said Piper Jaffray analyst Ashok Kumar.

But a source close to the company said that the move to withdraw the speakers was unrelated to Forte’s resignation or to Vantis.

Other analysts said that when a company drops out of a financial conference, it normally signals significant changes in progress.

“The common thing is that there is something going on that is wrong financially,” said Dan Niles, an analyst with BankBoston Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. “Or it could be that they are in the middle of a major restructuring or merger and don’t want to be in a situation where they can’t answer questions truthfully.”

Shares of the Sunnyvale-based company lost $3.38 to close at $20.94 on the NYSE.