Mentor Graphics Reports Annual and Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results

WILSONVILLE, Ore., February 24, 2011—Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year ending January 31, 2011. For the full year, the company reported revenues of $914.8 million, up 14% from fiscal year 2010, non-GAAP earnings per share of $.70, a 49% increase, and GAAP earnings per share of $.25 compared to a GAAP loss per share of $.23 the prior year. For the fiscal fourth quarter, the company reported revenues of $307.3 million, up 30% from the fourth quarter of the prior year, non-GAAP earnings per share up 60% at $.48, and GAAP earnings per share of $.43, up 10% from the prior fourth quarter.

“Driven by over 40% year-over-year bookings growth in our core system design business, Mentor set an all-time revenue record this past year, growing the fastest of the ‘Big 3’ EDA companies,” said Walden C. Rhines, CEO and chairman of Mentor Graphics. “Mentor’s decade-long emphasis on investment in system design software has driven us to a near-50% market share in printed circuit board design (PCB) software and an operating margin percent for PCB software that is twice that of the overall company. We expect this momentum to continue in this fiscal year as we achieve over 9% growth in Mentor’s revenues and a much greater percentage growth in earnings.”

During the quarter, the company teamed up with ARM to provide an automated memory test and repair solution for ARM embedded memories and processor cores. Mentor also combined Veloce® hardware emulation technology with equipment from Rohde and Schwarz, the largest test and measurement supplier in Europe, to deliver a hardwareaccelerated debug platform for wireless communication systems-on-chip. The company collaborated with IBM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Samsung to design a test chip for 32nm and 28nm IC manufacturing technologies, using the Mentor® Olympus-SoCTM place and route system and the Calibre® physical verification and design for manufacturing platform. Mentor’s leading-edge products continued to receive endorsements from customers such as Broadcom, Infineon, Siemens, Fujitsu and Cypress Semiconductor.

In December, the company announced the acquisition of assets of CodeSourcery, a leading provider of open source toolchains and services for advanced embedded systems development. CodeSourcery software enables customers to maximize the performance of hardware platforms ranging from embedded devices to supercomputers.

“Cost controls remain an intense focus at Mentor Graphics,” said Gregory K. Hinckley, president of Mentor Graphics. “We have reduced SG&A expense as a percent of revenue by five hundred basis points over the last two years, and are on track to reduce it another two hundred basis points this fiscal year. We are committed to continue to further reduce SG&A expense over the next several fiscal years.”

Outlook

For the fiscal first quarter ending April 30, 2011, the company expects revenue of about $225 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of about $.15 and GAAP earnings per share of about $.06. For the full year fiscal 2012, the company expects revenues to be approximately $1 billion, non-GAAP earnings per share of about $1.00 and GAAP earnings per share of approximately $.77. This represents a 9% growth in revenue, over 40% growth in non-GAAP earnings per share, and a non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 15%.

Financial Tables

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Fiscal Year Definition

Mentor Graphics fiscal year runs from February 1 to January 31. The fiscal year is dated by the calendar year in which the fiscal year ends. As a result, the first three fiscal quarters of any fiscal year will be dated with the next calendar year, rather than the current calendar year.

Discussion of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Mentor Graphics management evaluates and makes operating decisions using various performance measures. In addition to our GAAP results, we also consider adjusted gross margin, operating margin, net income (loss), and earnings (loss) per share which we refer to as non-GAAP gross margin, operating margin, net income (loss), and earnings (loss) per share, respectively. These non-GAAP measures are derived from the revenues of our product, maintenance, and services business operations and the costs directly related to the generation of those revenues, such as cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses, that management considers in evaluating our ongoing core operating performance. These non-GAAP measures exclude amortization of intangible assets, special charges, equity plan-related compensation expenses and charges, interest expense attributable to net retirement premiums or discounts on the early retirement of debt and associated debt issuance costs, interest expense associated with the amortization of debt discount and premium on convertible debt, impairment of long-lived assets, impairment of cost method investments, and the equity in income or losses of unconsolidated entities (except Frontline P.C.B Solutions Limited Partnership (Frontline)), which management does not consider reflective of our core operating business.

Identified intangible assets consist primarily of purchased technology, backlog, trade names, customer relationships, and employment agreements. Special charges primarily consist of costs incurred for employee terminations due to a reduction of personnel resources driven by modifications of business strategy or business emphasis. Special charges may also include expenses incurred related to potential acquisitions, abandonment of in-process research and development, excess facility costs, asset-related charges, post-acquisition rebalance costs and restructuring costs, including severance and benefits. Equity plan-related compensation expenses represent the fair value of all share-based payments to employees, including grants of employee stock options. For purposes of comparability across other periods and against other companies in our industry, non-GAAP net income (loss) is adjusted by the amount of additional tax expense or benefit that we would accrue using the normalized effective tax rate described below applied to the non-GAAP results.

Management excludes from our non-GAAP measures certain recurring items to facilitate its review of the comparability of our core operating performance on a period-to-period basis because such items are not related to our ongoing core operating performance as viewed by management. Management considers our core operating performance to be that which can be affected by our managers in any particular period through their management of the resources that affect our underlying revenue and profit generating operations during that period. Management uses this view of our operating performance for purposes of comparison with our business plan and individual operating budgets and allocation of resources. Additionally, when evaluating potential acquisitions, management excludes the items described above from its consideration of target performance and valuation. More specifically, management adjusts for the excluded items for the following reasons:

• Amortization charges for our intangible assets are excluded as they are inconsistent in amount and frequency and are significantly impacted by the timing and magnitude of our acquisition transactions. We therefore consider our operating results without these charges when evaluating our core performance. Generally, the most significant impact to inter-period comparability of our net income (loss) is in the first twelve months following an acquisition.
• Special charges are incurred based on the particular facts and circumstances of acquisition and restructuring decisions and can vary in size and frequency. These charges are excluded as they are not ordinarily included in our annual operating plan and related budget due to the unpredictability of economic trends and the rapidly changing technology and competitive environment in our industry. We therefore exclude them when evaluating our managers' performance internally.
• We view equity plan-related compensation as a key element of our employee retention and longterm incentives, not as an expense that we use in evaluating core operations in any given period.
• Interest expense attributable to net retirement premiums or discounts on the early retirement of debt, the write-off of associated debt issuance costs and the amortization of the debt discount and premium on convertible debt are excluded. Management does not consider these charges as a part of our core operating performance. The early retirement of debt and the associated debt issuance costs are not included in our annual operating plan and related budget due to unpredictability of market conditions which could facilitate an early retirement of debt. We do not consider the amortization of the debt discount and premium on convertible debt to be a direct cost of operations.
• Impairment of cost method investments can occur when the fair value of the investment is less than its cost. This can occur when there is a significant deterioration in the investee’s earnings performance, significant adverse changes in the general market conditions of the industry in which the investee operates, or indications that the investee may no longer be able to conduct business. These charges are inconsistent in amount and frequency. We therefore consider our operating results without these charges when evaluating our core performance.
• Equity in earnings or losses of unconsolidated subsidiaries, with the exception of our investment in Frontline, represents the net income (losses) in an investment accounted for under the equity method. The amounts represent our equity in the net income (losses) of a common stock investment. The carrying amount of our investment is adjusted for our share of earnings or losses of the investee. The amounts are excluded as we do not control the results of operations for these investments, we do not participate in regular and periodic operating activities and management does not consider these businesses a part of our core operating performance.
• In connection with the Company’s acquisition of Valor on March 18, 2010, we also acquired Valor’s 50% interest in Frontline, a joint venture. We report our equity in the earnings or losses of Frontline within operating income. We actively participate in regular and periodic activities such as budgeting, business planning, marketing and direction of research and development projects. Accordingly, we do not exclude our share of Frontline’s earnings or losses from our non-GAAP results as management considers the joint venture to be core to our operating performance.
• Income tax expense (benefit) is adjusted by the amount of additional tax expense or benefit that we would accrue if we used non-GAAP results instead of GAAP results in the calculation of our tax liability, taking into consideration our long-term tax structure. We use a normalized effective tax rate of 17%, which reflects the weighted average tax rate applicable under the various jurisdictions in which we operate. This non-GAAP tax rate eliminates the effects of non-recurring and period specific items which are often attributable to acquisition decisions and can vary in size and frequency and considers our US loss carryforwards that have not been previously benefited. This rate is subject to change over time for various reasons, including changes in the geographic business mix and changes in statutory tax rates. Our GAAP tax rate for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2011 is 11%. The GAAP tax rate considers certain mandatory and other non-scalable tax costs which may adversely or beneficially affect our tax rate depending upon our level of profitability in various jurisdictions.

In certain instances our GAAP results of operations may not be profitable when our corresponding non- GAAP results are profitable or vice versa. The number of shares on which our non-GAAP earnings per share is calculated may therefore differ from the GAAP presentation due to the anti-dilutive effect of stock options in a loss situation.

Non-GAAP gross margin, operating margin, and net income (loss) are supplemental measures of our performance that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, GAAP. Moreover, they should not be considered as an alternative to any performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP, or as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities as a measure of our liquidity. We present non-GAAP gross margin, operating margin, and net income (loss) because we consider them to be important supplemental measures of our operating performance and profitability trends, and because we believe they give investors useful information on period-to-period performance as evaluated by management. Non- GAAP net income (loss) also facilitates comparison with other companies in our industry, which use similar financial measures to supplement their GAAP results. Non-GAAP net income (loss) has limitations as an analytical tool, and therefore should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. In the future we expect to continue to incur expenses similar to the non-GAAP adjustments described above and exclusion of these items in our non-GAAP presentation should not be construed as an inference that these costs are unusual, infrequent or non-recurring. Some of the limitations in relying on non-GAAP net income (loss) are:

• Amortization of intangibles represents the loss in value as the technology in our industry evolves, is advanced, or is replaced over time. The expense associated with this loss in value is not included in the non-GAAP net income (loss) presentation and therefore does not reflect the full economic effect of the ongoing cost of maintaining our current technological position in our competitive industry, which is addressed through our research and development program.
• We regularly engage in acquisition and assimilation activities as part of our ongoing business and regularly evaluate our businesses to determine whether any operations should be eliminated or curtailed. We therefore will continue to experience special charges on a regular basis. These costs also directly impact our available funds.
• We perform impairment analyses on cost method investments when triggering events occur and adjust the carrying value of assets when we determine it to be necessary. Impairment charges could therefore be incurred in any period.
• Our stock option and stock purchase plans are important components of our incentive compensation arrangements and will be reflected as expenses in our GAAP results.
• Our income tax expense (benefit) will be ultimately based on our GAAP taxable income and actual tax rates in effect, which often differ significantly from the 17% rate assumed in our non- GAAP presentation. In addition, if we have a GAAP loss and non-GAAP net income, our non- GAAP results will not reflect any projected GAAP tax benefits. Similarly, in the event we were to have GAAP net income and a non-GAAP loss, our GAAP tax expense would be replaced by a credit in our non-GAAP presentation.
• Other companies, including other companies in our industry, calculate non-GAAP net income (loss) differently than we do, limiting its usefulness as a comparative measure.

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronic, semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $915 million. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.