Book Bag,
PMCS started it's life as Sierra Semiconductor (formerly listed on NASDAQ as SERA) in Silicon Valley in 1984 and went public in 1991. In 1994, Sierra Semiconductor acquired PMC-Sierra Ltd. which was based in Burnaby, B.C. In 1996 to 1997, much of what had been Sierra Semiconductor (graphics chips and modem chips) was shut down as those were each highly competitive commoditized markets where the company didn't have market share leadership nor any real competitive advantage. In 1997, Sierra Semiconductor re-incorporated in the state of Delaware (from it's original California corporation) and the name of the company changed to PMC-Sierra, Inc. to better represent the complete focus on the high-bandwidth networking business that the company had become. That is also the time when the ticker switched from SERA to PMCS.
So, unlike Nortel and JDS Uniphase which were both companies incorporated in Canada, yet trade on US stock exchanges, SERA/PMCS has always been incorporated in the United States, even after the headquarters were moved from San Jose to Burnaby when the transfer of the office of the CEO went from James Diller (founder of Sierra Semiconductor) to Robert Bailey (founder of PMC-Sierra Ltd.).
Thus, it's important to know the history of the company to see why PMCS is NOT a Canadian company. |
