Flex (FLEX) Risk Factors

Pursuant to the separation agreement, the tax matters agreement and certain other agreements with Nextracker, Nextracker has agreed to retain and indemnify us for certain liabilities. However, third parties could also seek to hold us responsible for any of the liabilities that Nextracker has agreed to retain, and there can be no assurance that the indemnity from Nextracker will be sufficient to protect us against the full amount of such liabilities, or that Nextracker will be able to fully satisfy its indemnification obligations. In addition, Flex's and/or Nextracker's insurance coverage may not be available or sufficient to cover certain occurrences of indemnified liabilities, and in any event insurers may deny coverage for liabilities associated with certain occurrences of indemnified liabilities. Moreover, even if we ultimately succeed in recovering from Nextracker or such insurance providers any amounts for which we are held liable, we may be temporarily required to bear these losses. Each of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our businesses, financial condition and results of operations.

We compete with a number of different companies, depending on the type of service we provide or the location of our operations. For example, we compete with major global EMS providers, other smaller EMS companies that have a regional or product-specific focus and Original Design Manufacturers ("ODMs") with respect to some of the services that we provide. We also compete with our current and prospective customers, who evaluate our capabilities in light of their own capabilities and cost structures. In the past, some of our customers moved a portion of their manufacturing from us in order to more fully utilize their excess internal manufacturing capacity. Any of these developments could cause a decline in our sales, loss of market acceptance of our products or services, decreases of our profits or loss of our market share. Our industry is extremely competitive, many of our competitors have achieved substantial market share, and some may have lower cost structures or greater design, manufacturing, financial or other resources than we do. We face particular competition from Asian-based competitors, including Taiwanese ODM suppliers who compete in a variety of our end markets and have a substantial share of global information technology hardware production. If we are unable to provide comparable manufacturing services and improved products at lower cost than the other companies in our market, our net sales could decline.

Our operations and the execution of our business plans and strategies are subject to the effects of global economic trends, geopolitical risks and demand or supply shocks from events that could include political crises and conflict (including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, the attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea), war, a major terrorist attack, natural disasters or actual or threatened public health emergencies (such as COVID-19). They are also affected by local and regional economic environments, supply chain constraints and policies in the U.S. and other markets that we serve, including interest rates, monetary policy, inflation, economic growth, recession, commodity prices, currency volatility, currency controls or other limitations on the ability to expatriate cash, sovereign debt levels and actual or anticipated defaults on sovereign debt. For example, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the related sanctions and other measures imposed by the European Union, the U.S. and other countries and organizations in response have led, and may continue to lead, to disruption and instability in global markets, supply chains and industries that could negatively impact our businesses, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, changes in local economic conditions or outlooks, such as lower rates of investment or economic growth in China, Europe or other key markets, affect the demand for or profitability of our products and services outside the U.S., and the impact on the Company could be significant given the extent of our activities outside the United States. Political changes and trends such as populism, protectionism, economic nationalism and sentiment toward multinational companies and resulting tariffs, export controls or other trade barriers, or changes to tax or other laws and policies, have been and may continue to be disruptive and costly to our businesses, and these can interfere with our global operating model, supply chain, production costs, customer relationships and competitive position. Further escalation of specific trade tensions, including intensified decoupling between the U.S. and China, or in global trade conflict more broadly could be harmful to global economic growth or to our business in or with China or other countries, and related decreases in confidence or investment activity in the global markets would adversely affect our business performance. We also do business in many emerging market jurisdictions where economic, political and legal risks are heightened. Further, an increase in inflation pressures, such as what the market is currently experiencing, could affect our profitability and cash flows, due to higher wages, higher operating costs, higher financing costs, and/or higher supplier prices. Inflation may also adversely affect foreign exchange rates. We may be unable to pass along such higher costs to our customers. In addition, inflation may adversely affect customers' financing costs, cash flows, and profitability, which could adversely impact their operations and our ability to collect receivables. Rising interest rates could have a dampening effect on overall economic activity and/or the financial condition of our customers, either or both of which could negatively affect customer demand for our manufacturing services and our customers' ability to repay obligations to us. These conditions may result in reduced consumer and business confidence and spending in many countries, a tightening in the credit markets, a reduced level of liquidity in many financial markets, high volatility in credit, fixed income and equity markets, currency exchange rate fluctuations, and global economic uncertainty. In addition, longer term disruptions in the capital and credit markets could adversely affect our access to liquidity needed for our business. If financial institutions that have extended credit commitments to us are adversely affected by the conditions of the U.S. and international capital markets, they may become unable to fund borrowings under their credit commitments to us, which could have an adverse impact on our financial condition and our ability to borrow additional funds, if needed, for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, research and development and other corporate purposes. These conditions could also adversely impact our customers and suppliers, which in turn could adversely affect us. We have facilities across the globe including in Israel and Ukraine. If these facilities were to be damaged, destroyed or otherwise unable to operate, whether due to war, acts of hostility, or terrorist acts, such an event could jeopardize our ability to develop, manufacture and deliver certain products and adversely affect our operations and results of operations. Our operations have been, and could continue to be, disrupted by the absence of employees called to active duty to perform military service. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Hamas war, the attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea, and other hostilities or armed conflicts, or the interruption or curtailment of trade or transport between the countries where our facilities are located and their respective trading partners, could adversely affect our operations and results of operations.

The geographic distances between the Americas, Asia and Europe create a number of logistical and communications challenges for us. These challenges include managing operations across multiple time zones, directing the manufacture and delivery of products across long distances, coordinating procurement of components and raw materials and their delivery to multiple locations, and coordinating the activities and decisions of the core management team, which is based in a number of different countries. Facilities in several different locations may be involved at different stages of the production process of a single product, leading to additional logistical difficulties. Because our manufacturing operations are located in a number of countries throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe, we are subject to risks of changes in economic, social and political conditions in those countries, including: - fluctuations in the value of local currencies;- labor unrest, including labor strikes, difficulties in staffing and geographic labor shortages;- longer payment cycles;- cultural differences;- increases in duties, tariffs, and taxation levied on our products including anti-dumping and countervailing duties;- trade restrictions including limitations on imports or exports of components or assembled products, unilaterally or bilaterally;- trade sanctions and related regulatory enforcement actions and other proceedings;- potential trade wars;- increased scrutiny by the media and other third parties of labor practices within our industry (including but not limited to forced labor and adverse working conditions) which may result in allegations of violations, more stringent and burdensome labor laws and regulations and inconsistency in the enforcement and interpretation of such laws and regulations, higher labor costs, and/or loss of revenues if our customers become dissatisfied with our labor practices and diminish or terminate their relationship with us;- inflationary pressures, such as those the market is currently experiencing, which may increase costs for materials, supplies, and services;- imposition of restrictions on currency conversion or the transfer of funds;- environmental protection laws and regulations, including those related to climate change;- expropriation of private enterprises;- ineffective legal protection of our intellectual property rights in certain countries;- natural disasters;- exposure to infectious disease, epidemics and pandemics on our business operations in geographic locations impacted by the outbreak and on the business operations of our customers and suppliers;- inability of international customers and suppliers to obtain financing resulting from tightening of credit in international financial markets;- ongoing global supply chain disruptions, including disruptions in international commerce as a result of attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea, which have slowed the ability of our facilities to import necessary materials and export our products and adversely affected our business;- political unrest; and - a potential reversal of current favorable policies encouraging foreign investment or foreign trade by our host countries. The attractiveness of our services to customers and our ability to conduct business with certain customers can be affected by changes in U.S. and other countries' policies, including regarding trade. We have significant operations located in China, which have been in the past, and could in the future be, adversely affected by evolving laws, regulations and policies, import and export tariffs and restrictions, and information security and privacy, as well as changes in the political and geopolitical environment involving China. U.S.-China bilateral trade relations remain uncertain. The U.S.'s various trade actions, including imposing tariffs on certain goods imported from China or deemed to be of Chinese origin, as well as the potential for new tariffs, trade embargoes or sanctions by the U.S., and countermeasures imposed by China in response, could, depending on their duration and implementation as well as our ability to mitigate their impact, materially affect our business, including in the form of increased cost of goods sold, decreased margins, increased pricing for customers, and reduced sales. Moreover, we could be subject to reputational harm if any of our customers, former customers or vendors were subject to U.S. sanctions or if our customers, former customers or vendors did business with sanctioned countries. Furthermore, geopolitical changes in China-Taiwan relations could disrupt the operations of several companies in Taiwan that are critical to the global supply of semiconductors and other electronic components on which many of our customers depend. In addition, some countries in which we operate, such as Brazil, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Poland, have experienced periods of slow or negative growth, high inflation, significant currency devaluations or limited availability of foreign exchange. Furthermore, in countries such as Brazil, China, India and Mexico, governmental authorities exercise significant influence over many aspects of the economy, and their actions could have a significant effect on us. We could be seriously harmed by inadequate infrastructure, including lack of adequate power and water supplies, transportation, raw materials and parts in countries in which we operate. In addition, we may encounter labor disruptions, including labor strikes or claims, and rising labor costs, including the introduction or expansion of certain social programs, in particular within the lower-cost regions in which we operate due to, among other things, demographic changes and economic development in those regions. Any increase in labor costs that we are unable to recover in our pricing to our customers could adversely impact our operating results. Operations in foreign countries also present risks associated with currency exchange and convertibility, inflation and repatriation of earnings. Inflation may impact the Company's profits and cash flows as well as adversely affect foreign exchange rates. In some countries, economic and monetary conditions and other factors could affect our ability to convert our cash distributions to U.S. dollars or other freely convertible currencies, or to move funds from our accounts in these countries. Furthermore, the central bank of any of these countries may have the authority to suspend, restrict or otherwise impose conditions on foreign exchange transactions or to approve distributions to foreign investors.

Our operations or systems could be disrupted by natural disasters, terrorist activity, public health issues, cybersecurity incidents, interruptions of service from utilities, political crises and conflicts (including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, and other geopolitical conflicts), interruptions of service from transportation or telecommunications providers, or other catastrophic events. Climate change may exacerbate the frequency and intensity of natural disasters and adverse weather conditions. Such events could make it difficult or impossible to manufacture or deliver products to our customers, receive production materials from our suppliers, or perform critical functions, which could adversely affect our revenue and require significant recovery time and expenditures to resume operations. While we maintain business recovery plans that are intended to allow us to recover from natural disasters or other events that can be disruptive to our business, some of our systems are not fully redundant and we cannot be sure that our plans will fully protect us from all such disruptions. We maintain a program of insurance coverage for a variety of property, casualty, and other risks. We place our insurance coverage with multiple carriers in numerous jurisdictions. However, one or more of our insurance providers may be unable or unwilling to pay a claim. The types and amounts of insurance we obtain vary depending on availability, cost, and decisions with respect to risk retention. The policies have deductibles and exclusions that result in us retaining a level of self-insurance. Losses not covered by insurance may be large, which could harm our results of operations and financial condition.

We have manufacturing operations and industrial parks that are located in various part of the world, including Asia, Eastern Europe, Mexico and Brazil. A portion of our purchases and our sale transactions are denominated in currencies other than the United States dollar. As a result, we are exposed to fluctuations in these currencies impacting our fixed cost overhead or our supply base relative to the currencies in which we conduct transactions. Currency exchange rates fluctuate on a daily basis as a result of a number of factors, including changes in a country's political and economic policies. The primary impact of currency exchange fluctuations is on the cash, receivables, payables and expenses of our operating entities. As part of our currency hedging strategy, we use financial instruments such as forward exchange, swap contracts, and options to hedge our foreign currency exposure in order to reduce the short-term impact of foreign currency rate fluctuations on our operating results. If our hedging activities are not successful, if counterparties to these hedging activities default on their obligations to us, or if we change or reduce these hedging activities in the future, we may experience significant unexpected fluctuations in our operating results as a result of changes in exchange rates. We are also exposed to risks related to the valuation of the Mexican and Chinese currencies relative to the U.S. dollar. The Mexican currency is the peso ("MXN") and the Chinese currency is the renminbi ("RMB"). A significant increase in the value of the MXN or RMB could adversely affect our financial results and cash flows by increasing both our manufacturing costs and the costs of our local supply base. Volatility in the functional and non-functional currencies of our entities and the United States dollar could seriously harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our components business, which includes power supply manufacturing, is part of our strategy to improve our competitive position and to grow our future margins, profitability and shareholder returns by expanding our capabilities. The success of our components business is dependent on our ability to design and introduce world-class components that have performance characteristics which are suitable for a broad market and that offer significant price and/or performance advantages over competitive products. To create these world class components offerings, we must continue to make substantial investments in the development of our components capabilities, in resources such as research and development, technology licensing, test and tooling equipment, facility expansions, and personnel requirements. We may not be able to achieve or maintain market acceptance for any of our components offerings in any of our current or target markets. The success of our components business will also depend upon the level of market acceptance of our customers' end products, which incorporate our components, and over which we have no control.

We retain certain intellectual property rights to some of the technologies that we develop as part of our engineering, design, and manufacturing services and components offerings. The measures we have taken to prevent unauthorized use of our technology may not be successful. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights, this could reduce or eliminate the competitive advantages of our proprietary technology, which would harm our business. Our engineering, design and manufacturing services and component offerings involve the creation and use of intellectual property rights, which subject us to the risk of claims of infringement or misuse of intellectual property from third parties and/or breach of our agreements with third parties, as well as claims arising from the allocation of intellectual property risk among us and our customers. From time to time, we enter into intellectual property licenses (e.g., patent licenses and software licenses) with third parties which obligate us to report covered behavior to the licensor and pay license fees to the licensor for certain activities or products, or that enable our use of third party technologies. We may also decline to enter into licenses for intellectual property that we do not think is useful for or used in our operations, or for which our customers or suppliers have licenses or have assumed responsibility. Given the diverse and varied nature of our business and the location of our business around the world, certain activities we perform, such as providing assembly services in China and India, may fall outside the scope of those licenses or may not be subject to the applicable intellectual property rights. Our licensors may disagree and claim royalties are owed for such activities. In addition, the basis (e.g., base price) for any royalty amounts owed are audited by licensors and may be challenged. Our customers often require us to indemnify them against the risk of intellectual property-related claims and licensors are claiming that activities we perform are covered by licenses to which we are a party. If any claims of infringement or misuse of intellectual property from third parties and/or breach of our agreements with third parties, as well as claims arising from the allocation of intellectual property risk among us and our customers, are brought against us or our customers, whether or not these have merit, we could be required to expend significant resources in defense of such claims. In the event of such a claim, we may be required to spend a significant amount of money to develop alternatives or obtain licenses or to resolve the issue through litigation. We may not be successful in developing such alternatives or obtaining such licenses on reasonable terms or at all, and any such litigation might not be resolved in our favor, in which cases we may be required to curtail certain of our services and offerings. Additionally, litigation could be lengthy and costly, and could materially harm our financial condition regardless of outcome. We also face certain heightened risks to our intellectual property rights due to our extensive operations in foreign jurisdictions, including the risk of theft or misuse of our intellectual property rights in certain foreign jurisdictions. The laws of certain countries in which we operate may not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and the mechanisms to enforce intellectual property rights may be inadequate to protect our rights, which could harm our business.

We rely on our information systems, some of which are managed by third parties, to process, transmit and store electronic information (including sensitive data such as confidential business information and personally identifiable information in each case relating to employees, customers, vendors, consumers, and other business partners), and to manage or support a variety of critical business processes and activities including manufacturing, design and engineering services, financial reporting, recordkeeping, compliance and internal controls, human and capital asset and inventory management, procurement, invoicing, treasury activities, and electronic communications. With increased work-from-home arrangements, we are increasingly dependent upon our information systems to operate our business and our ability to effectively manage our business depends on the security, reliability and adequacy of our information systems. We may be adversely affected if our information systems break down, fail, or are no longer supported. In addition, we continue to invest in and implement modifications and upgrades to our information systems, which may be complex and require significant management oversight, and subject us to inherent costs and associated risks including disruption of operations and loss of information. We regularly face attempts by sophisticated and malicious actors to gain unauthorized access to our information systems, including those using techniques that change frequently or may be disguised or difficult to detect and remain dormant until a triggering event or that may continue undetected for an extended period of time. They may attempt to gain access to our networks, data centers or cloud resources - including those managed by third parties - or those of our customers, vendors or end users; steal proprietary information related to our business, products, employees, and customers; or interrupt our systems, operations or services or those of our customers, vendors or others. We believe such attempts are increasing in number and in technical sophistication, including through the use of adversarial artificial intelligence techniques, which, if we are subject to, could have material adverse effects. Due to increasing global tensions and conflicts, including involving China, the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict, and the conflict in the Middle East, we and the third parties upon which we rely may be vulnerable to a currently heightened risk of information technology breaches, computer malware, ransomware or other cyber attacks, including attacks that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain and ability to produce, sell and distribute our products. In some instances, we, our customers, vendors, or the users of our products and services might be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects. We have implemented and maintain security systems with the intent of protecting the physical security of our facilities and inventory and protecting our information systems including our customers' and vendors' information. We seek to prevent, detect, investigate, contain and mitigate security-related threats and unauthorized attempts and attacks against our information systems, networks, products, and services, and to prevent their recurrence where practicable through changes to our internal processes and tools. There can be no assurance, however, that our security measures will be sufficient to prevent a material breach or compromise in the future. We are subject to, and at times have suffered from, breach or attempted breach of our security systems which have in the past and may in the future result in unauthorized access to our facilities and/or unauthorized acquisition, use or theft of the assets, inventory or information we are trying to protect. If unauthorized parties gain physical access to our facilities, operations, assets, inventory, or information or if they gain electronic access to our information systems or if such facilities, operations, assets, inventory or information are used in an unauthorized manner, misdirected, or lost or stolen during transmission or transport, any theft or misuse of such operations, assets, inventory or information could result in, among other things, unfavorable publicity, loss of competitive advantage, governmental inquiry and oversight, difficulty in marketing and selling our services, increased security and compliance costs, significant costs related to rebuilding internal systems, higher insurance premiums, allegations by our customers that we have not performed our contractual obligations, litigation by affected parties including our customers and possible financial penalties, fines or obligations for damages related to the theft or misuse of such assets, inventory or information, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our profitability and cash flows. Further, third parties, such as cloud or hosted solution providers, could be a source of risk in the event of a failure of their own systems and infrastructure or could experience their own privacy or security event which could create risks similar to those described above. These risks are likely to be elevated in times of geopolitical instability and escalated tensions between countries. Moreover, we may be required to invest significant additional resources to comply with evolving cybersecurity regulations and to modify and enhance our information systems, information security and controls, and to investigate and remediate any security vulnerabilities. We are subject to laws and regulations in the U.S. and in other countries relating to privacy and the collection, use, transfer, storage and security of personal data, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), the UK GDPR, the EU ePrivacy Directive, Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act, China's Personal Information Protection Law ("PIPL"), and other privacy and data security laws throughout the Asia Pacific region and across the globe. In the U.S., many states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia have enacted data privacy laws. The California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA") became effective January 1, 2020 and was further amended by the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA"), which became effective on January 1, 2023. The CCPA and CPRA, among other requirements, require covered companies to provide new rights and disclosures to California consumers, and allow such consumers abilities to opt-out of certain sales of personal information and other activities, and creates a new regulatory enforcement body. These recent and potential additional regulations and avenues for enforcement could result in, among other things, government inquiries, which could result in significant penalties. Additionally, new privacy and data protection laws and regulations are being considered, under development or are pending at the U.S. Federal and state level and many international jurisdictions. These laws continue to develop and may have conflicting requirements or be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This poses increasingly complex compliance challenges, which have resulted, and will continue to result in, increased compliance costs, and have required, and may in the future require, us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses in an effort to comply. Any actual or perceived failures to comply with these laws or regulations, or related contractual or other obligations, or any perceived privacy rights violation, whether by us, one of our third-party service providers or vendors or another third party, could lead to investigations, claims, and proceedings by governmental entities and private parties, damages for contract breach, and other significant costs, penalties, and other liabilities, as well as harm to our reputation and market position. The GDPR, the PIPL, U.S. state laws and other laws and self-regulatory codes may affect our ability to reach current and prospective customers, to understand how our solutions and services are being used, to respond to customer requests allowed under the laws, to transfer information among the Company and its international subsidiaries, and to implement our business strategy effectively. These laws and regulations could similarly affect our customers.