Bookham Tests Market With 1 Billion Pound Float
news.excite.com
Updated 11:33 AM ET April 10, 2000
Current quotes (delayed 20 mins.) CSCO 72 9/16 -2 3/8 (-3.17%)
By Richard Meares
LONDON (Reuters) - Fiber optics maker Bookham Technology Plc will put the British technology market to the test on Tuesday when it prices its keenly awaited initial public offering and joins the London Stock Exchange.
The company, worth around one billion pounds ($1.58 billion) and one of the largest high-tech groups to debut in London, is pushing ahead with the IPO of 19.4 million shares, despite recent turbulence which has hit technology and Internet stocks.
Bookham has set a price range for the shares of eight to 10 pounds each and attention will focus on whether it achieves this level in the light of recent volatility.
Fellow high-tech company Eyretel Plc was forced to cut the price of its share offering on Monday to 150 pence per share, from a previously indicated 195-240p because of market turbulence, valuing it at 218.2 million pounds.
Other tech and Internet stocks which have floated in recent weeks have failed to stay above their launch price, most notably online travel agent Lastminute.com Plc, which has been trading at around two pounds this week -- just over half its issue price.
Oxfordshire-based Bookham is very different from Web newcomers, however, having been in business for a decade and boasting a niche technology, like microchip designer ARM Holdings Plc or "intelligent" software maker Autonomy.
The company makes fiber-optic components on silicon chips in high volume whereas most competitors in its rapidly growing market still rely on manually assembled devices.
Its supporters claim it will be the Intel of its business, which is known as photonics -- the use of light to transmit data.
Bookham, whose shareholders include 3i, Cisco Systems
and Intel, will have a dual listing of American Depository Shares on the U.S. technology-led exchange, Nasdaq.
It said the money from the flotation would be used to raise funds for more investments.
Goldman Sachs coordinated the flotation.
"An IPO would provide us with the necessary funding to continue to invest in new product development at the same time as increasing our production capacity to deliver on the major contracts we have signed in the last quarter of 1999," Chief Executive Officer Andrew Rickman said earlier.
He named the company after the town south of London where he was born. |
