Gentex (GNTX) Risk Factors

The Company is subject to income taxes in the U.S. and other foreign jurisdictions. Changes in tax rates, adoption of new tax laws or other additional tax policies, and other proposals to reform United States and foreign tax laws could adversely affect the Company's operating results, cash flows, and financial condition. The Company's domestic and international tax liabilities are dependent upon the location of earnings among these different jurisdictions.

As a result of just-in-time supply chains within our business and the automotive industry, disruptions in our supply chain have occurred, are occurring, and may continue to occur due to the industry-wide parts shortages, labor shortages, and other global supply chain constraints. We have and continue to take a number of steps to mitigate the current supply chain challenges, which include strategies involving the additional procurement of available raw materials to prepare for assembling finished goods more quickly when supply constraints ease for certain common components. These inventory strategies further introduce obsolescence risk that impacts our business, financial conditions, and/or results of operations. As our customers' forecasted demand changes, inventory becomes obsolete and write-offs or write-downs of our inventory are exacerbated. Disruptions can also occur due to natural disasters, pandemics, work stoppages, strikes, bankruptcy, etc. Such circumstances have disrupted, are disrupting, and will continue to disrupt our shipments to automakers and Tier 1 customers, which adversely affects our business, financial condition, and/or results of operations.

Increasing costs in raw materials, energy, commodities, labor, and other product component costs adversely affects our business, financial condition and/or results of operations. These costs have generally increased as a result of supply chain disruptions, constrained labor availability, global economic factors, as well as inflationary impacts. When these prices rise and we are unable to recover such cost increases from our customers, those increases have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and/or results of operations;

Manufacturing of our proprietary products employing electro-optic technology is performed primarily at our manufacturing facilities in Zeeland and Holland, Michigan. One of our manufacturing facilities is located in Holland, Michigan, which is approximately three miles from our other primary manufacturing facilities in Zeeland, Michigan. Should a catastrophic event occur, our ability to manufacture product, complete existing orders and provide other services could be severely impacted for an undetermined period of time. We have purchased business interruption insurance to address some of these risks. Our inability to conduct normal business operations for a period of time may have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and/or results of operations.

We currently conduct operations in various countries and jurisdictions, including purchasing raw materials and other supplies from many different countries around the world, which subjects us to the legal, political, regulatory and social requirements as well as various economic conditions in these jurisdictions. Some of these countries are considered growth markets. International sales and operations, especially in growth markets, subject us to certain risks inherent in doing business abroad, including: - Exposure to local economic, political and labor conditions;-     Unexpected changes in laws, regulations, trade or monetary or fiscal policy, including interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates and changes in the rate of inflation in the U.S. and other foreign countries;-     Tariffs (as discussed herein), quotas, customs and other import or export restrictions and other trade barriers;- Natural disasters, political crises, and public health crises (e.g. pandemics), which have caused, are causing, and will likely continue to cause downtime and closures at both supplier and customer facilities;- Expropriation and nationalization;-     Difficulty of enforcing agreements, collecting receivables and protecting assets through non-U.S. legal systems;-     Reduced intellectual property protection;- Withholding and other taxes on remittances and other payments by subsidiaries;-     Investment restrictions or requirements;-     Export and import restrictions;-     Violence and civil unrest in local countries;-     Compliance with the requirements of an increasing body of applicable anti-bribery laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act and similar laws of various other countries; and - Exposure related to buying, selling and financing in currencies other than the local currencies of the countries in which we operate.

Certain automakers and Tier 1 customers from time to time may consider the sale of certain business segments or bankruptcy as a result of financial stress. Should one or more of our larger customers (including sales through their Tier 1 suppliers) declare bankruptcy or sell their business, it could adversely affect the collection of receivables, our business, financial condition, and/or results of operations. The current economic environment continues to cause increased financial pressures and production stresses on our customers, which could impact the timeliness of customer payments and ultimately the collectability of receivables. Our allowance for doubtful accounts primarily relates to financially distressed automotive mirror and electronics customers. We continue to work with these financially distressed customers in collecting past due balances. Refer to Note 1 of the Consolidated Financial Statements.

We recognize that Magna Mirrors, our main competitor, has considerably more resources available to it, and presents a formidable competitive threat. Additionally, other companies have demonstrated products that are competitive to our FDM system and other products. We acknowledge that dimming device (e.g., electrochromic) technology is the subject of research and development efforts by numerous third parties. On March 31, 2014 the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") to allow automakers to use CMS as an option to replace conventional rearview mirrors within North America, however, no final rule or legislation was made in response to this petition. At the annual SAE Government-Industry Meeting in January 2017, NHTSA requested that SAE develop Recommended Procedures for test protocols and performance criteria for CMS that would replace mirror systems on light vehicles in the U.S. market. SAE assigned the task to the Driver Vision Committee, and the SAE Driver Vision Committee created a CMS Task Force to draft the Recommended Procedures. NHTSA published a report dated October 2018 related to camera monitoring systems for outside mirror replacements. On October 10, 2019, an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) was published seeking public comment on permitting camera-based rear visibility systems, as an alternative to inside and outside rearview mirrors required under Federal motor vehicle safety standard (FMVSS) No. 111, "Rear Visibility," which currently requires that vehicles be equipped with rearview mirrors to provide drivers with a view of objects that are to their side or to their side and rear. This ANPRM builds on NHTSA's prior efforts to obtain supporting technical information, data, and analysis on CMS so that the agency can determine whether these systems can provide the same level of safety as the rearview mirrors currently required under FMVSS No. 111. The ANPRM states that one reason NHTSA is seeking additional information is because research conducted by NHTSA and others between 2006 and 2017 has consistently shown that prototype and preproduction camera-based rear visibility systems can exhibit safety-relevant performance issues. In November 2022, NHTSA conducted a public meeting and discussed the on-going research of this technology. In July 2016, a revision to UN-ECE Regulation 46 was published with an effective date of June 18, 2016, which allows for camera monitor systems to replace mirrors within Japan and European countries. Since January 2017, camera monitoring systems are also permitted as an alternative to replace mirrors in the Korean market. In 2023, China released and made effective an updated version of its GB15084, which allows for camera monitoring systems, frameless mirrors and aspheric (free-form) glass surfaces. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Company continues to believe rearview mirrors provide a robust, simple and cost effective means to view the surrounding areas of a vehicle and remain the primary safety function for rear vision today. Cameras, when used as the primary rear vision delivery mechanism, have some inherent limitations such as: electrical failure; cameras being blocked or obstructed; depth perception challenges; and viewing angle of the camera. Nonetheless, the Company continues designing and manufacturing not only rearview mirrors, but CMOS imagers and video displays as well. The Company believes that combining video displays with mirrors provides a more robust product by addressing all driving conditions in a single solution that can be controlled by the driver. The Company has been in production with the Company's FDM since 2015 and has, in the ordinary course of business, been awarded programs with fourteen (14) OEM customers. The Company is currently shipping production FDM to all fourteen of these customers. The Company's CMS solution uses three cameras to provide a comprehensive view of the sides and rear of the vehicle while still providing the traditional safety of interior and exterior mirrors, that still function when cameras are obstructed, or not functioning. The Company has previously announced that the Company continues to develop in the areas of imager performance, camera dynamic range, lens design, image processing from the camera to the display, and camera lens cleaning. The Company acknowledges that as such technology evolves over time, such as cameras replacing mirrors and/or autonomous driving, there will be increased competition.

Customers within the auto industry comprise approximately 98% of our net sales. The automotive industry has always been cyclical and highly impacted by levels of economic activity. The current economic environment, including inflation, continues to be uncertain, and continues to cause financial and production stresses evidenced by volatile automotive production levels, volatility with customer orders, supplier part and material shortages (especially electronics components), automotive and Tier 1 supplier plant shutdowns, customer and supplier financial issues, commodity raw material cost increases, supply constraints, tariffs, consumer vehicle preference shifts (where we have a lower penetration rate and lower content per vehicle), and supply chain stresses. If automotive customers (including their Tier 1 suppliers) and suppliers experience significant plant shutdowns, work stoppages, strikes, part shortages, etc., it will further disrupt our shipments to these customers, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and/or results of operations. Automakers continue to experience volatility and uncertainty in executing planned new programs on time, due in part to continued vehicle complexity increases and supply chain constraints. This brings increased risk of delays or cancellations of new vehicle platforms, package configurations, and inaccurate volume forecasts. This makes it challenging for us to forecast future sales and manage costs, inventory, capital, engineering, research and development, and human resource investments, in addition to the aforementioned factors.