AUSTIN, Texas — (BUSINESS WIRE) — July 23, 2015 — Freescale Semiconductor, Ltd. (NYSE: FSL) today announced financial results for the second quarter ended July 3, 2015. Highlights include:

Debt Redemption

• Announced redemption of $302 million of remaining 10.75% Notes during the third quarter.
• Freescale will have reduced debt by approximately $1.40 billion and annualized interest expense by $160 million, since January 2014.

“Second quarter results represented record performance for Freescale,” said Gregg Lowe, president and CEO. “Gross margins of 48.1 percent established a new record and were 300 basis points ahead of the prior year’s quarter. Gross margins have now increased sequentially for 10 consecutive quarters. Adjusted earnings per share of $0.57 were also a record and were 50 percent ahead of the second quarter last year. The execution on gross margin, combined with operating expense discipline and de-leveraging work we have done, have helped generate record operating cash flow as well as record free cash flow in the quarter.”

*Adjusted for various items as indicated and defined in Note 1 to the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Information attached to this press release.

**Reflects EBITDA excluding the effect of other items.

Second Quarter Highlights

Net sales for the second quarter of 2015 were $1.20 billion, compared to $1.17 billion in the first quarter of 2015 and $1.19 billion in the second quarter of 2014.

Operating earnings for the period were $226 million, compared to $179 million in the first quarter of 2015 and $180 million in the second quarter of 2014. Operating earnings increased due to higher revenues, improving gross margins and lower operating expenses. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales were 28.3 percent in the quarter, 100 basis points lower than the preceding quarter and 80 basis points lower than second quarter of 2014. Second quarter 2015 operating earnings included $6 million of reorganization of business costs comprised of expenses associated with the company’s planned merger with NXP Semiconductors and severance.