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JDS sees no slowdown in spending
Fibre optics giant confident despite WorldCom comments
By Gareth Vaughan, FTMarketWatch 1:03:00 PM GMT Nov 8, 2000
LONDON (FTMW) - JDS Uniphase, the optical equipment giant, sees no
slowdown in its customer's capital expenditure on fibre optic components
despite comments from telecoms giant WorldCom [US:WCOM] that it would
spend less next year, JDS's vice president and CFO said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Merrill Lynch conference in London,
Anthony Muller said JDS [US:JDSU] sees continued
robust capital expenditure growth from its
customers, at least in the fibre optic area.
"All the data we've seen points to a robust increase
in the rate of spending on fibre optic equipment,"
Muller said.
Jerry Rawls, the president and CEO of Finisar Corp. [US:FNSR], another fibre optic
group, agreed.
"All of our customers (which include 3Com, Alcatel, Intel and IBM) are increasing
their spending," Rawls said.
JDS is in the midst of acquiring SDL Inc. [US:SDLI], in a deal that was announced
back in July. JDS will exchange 3.8 of its shares for each SDL share in an
acquisition initially valued at more than $40 billion.
Muller said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wouldn't be a
factor in delaying the deal, which he said remains on track to close by the end of
December.
British fibre optic chip maker Bookham Technology [UK:BHM] said earlier on
Wednesday it was also not seeing any signs of a slowdown, despite bearish
comments recently from its major customer Nortel [US:NT] See story.
Gareth Vaughan is a reporter in London for FTMarketWatch |
