Broadcom Taps Alphabet Veteran as CFO After Record Quarter Triggers Steep Selloff

The decision to install Amie Thuener as Broadcom’s new chief financial officer on June 12 could hardly have come at a more fraught moment. Four weeks before the next quarterly report — and just days after a 15% weekly rout — the company is putting a fresh face atop its finance operation. Thuener arrives from Alphabet, where she served as vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer since 2018. She replaces Kirsten Spears, who will stay on as an adviser for nine months to smooth the transition.

Thuener’s compensation package underscores the gravity of the task: a $700,000 base salary, a $1 million signing bonus, and 50,000 restricted stock units plus 50,000 performance stock units. The PSUs will vest only if Broadcom’s stock performance relative to the S&P 500 meets specified thresholds. The timing is deliberate — just weeks before the next earnings release, and immediately after a bruising market reaction to what were, on the surface, stellar results.

Broadcom reported second?quarter revenue of $22.19 billion — a record — but fell just shy of the $22.27 billion consensus. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.44 edged the $2.40 estimate. CEO Hock Tan described demand for AI chips as “simply insatiable.” Yet the stock cratered more than 12% on June 4 after management projected roughly $16 billion in AI chip sales for the current quarter, well below the $17.2 billion analysts had expected. The fact that Broadcom left its full?year AI chip revenue target unchanged at $56 billion — roughly 180% growth — only deepened the disappointment after a long rally.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Broadcom?

Behind the selloff lies a strategic pivot that Tan confirmed during the earnings call: Broadcom is exiting the business of selling complete hardware systems and focusing exclusively on custom AI accelerators, or XPUs, and networking chips. Hyperscalers such as Google, Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic are increasingly designing their own silicon, and Broadcom wants to be their go?to manufacturing partner. The company now serves six core clients in the custom?chip business, with two additional customers having already booked $6 billion in AI orders. Tan reiterated the 2027 revenue target of more than $100 billion for AI semiconductors, but the unchanged outlook — despite “unrelenting” demand — irked a market that had expected a raise.

Wall Street largely dismissed the selloff as an overreaction. At least eight banks raised their price targets on the same day. Jefferies set a $550 target, JPMorgan $580, and Mizuho’s Vijay Rakesh lifted his from $480 to $530, calling the dip a buying opportunity. Deutsche Bank lifted its target from $430 to $515. The consensus rating remains a “Strong Buy,” with 24 buy recommendations, three holds and zero sells. Still, the stock ended the week at €336.75 — about 21% below the all?time high of €429.60 hit at the start of June. The relative?strength index sits at 41, nearing oversold territory.

Margin pressure adds another layer. Broadcom expects third?quarter gross margins to slip to roughly 74%, a temporary mix effect as AI hardware carries different margin characteristics than infrastructure software, according to both Bank of America and Citi. The former raised its target despite the decline. On the software side, the company extended its partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group and released VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 — developments that took a back seat to the chip drama.

The next dividend ex?date falls on June 22, with a payout of $2.60 a share. Despite the year’s volatility, the stock is still up about 59% over the past twelve months — a testament to how far the AI?driven rerating has carried Broadcom, even as the market demands more proof with every quarterly milepost.

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