Shareholder vote rescheduled:
thestreet.com
JDSU Turn-around ahead:
biz.yahoo.com
But experts think that a resolution to this issue is at hand. Most analysts seem to agree that JDS may have to divest itself of the Zurich plant in order to get the nod from the FTC. The good news is that although JDS and SDL would have to give up some market share, the plant could fetch at least $4 billion, and perhaps as much as $7 billion. That's pretty impressive considering the plant generates under a quarter billion in total revenue.
As a benchmark for what the business could be worth to JDS and its shareholders, consider that Corning (NYSE:GLW - news) spent $4 billion to acquire Pirelli's components business in Italy. And that company is expected to generate a mere $80 million in sales in 2001.
More mentions:
biz.yahoo.com
www2.marketwatch.com
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JDS Uniphase led a rally in fiber-optic stocks, gaining 5.50 on Nasdaq to 47.38. The company said it has rescheduled a special shareholder meeting for its pending merger with SDL Inc. to Jan. 26. JDS plans to exchange 3.8 shares for each share of SDL. SDL rose 19.56 on Nasdaq to 165.
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But enough with all the bow-wow-wow already. Here's what we like.
First up is none other than JDS Uniphase (JSDU). The product of the 1999 merger between JDS Fitel and Uniphase, this San Jose, Calif.-based fiber-optic component maker was billed by many as that booming sector's up-and-coming Cisco Systems (CSCO). Its monster megabillion dollar acquisitions of E-TEK and SDL (SDLI) (pending) helped it amass a sizeable $40 billion market cap and ushered it into the S&P 500 club. Factor in estimated earnings growth of more than 165% by 2002 in an optic-infrastructure universe that is supposed to form the next stretch of the Information Superhighway, and you have a stock that should be living it up. And yet, at $42, it's only $5 above the 52-week low of $37 it set last Friday and a painful 73% lower than its all-time high of $153.42 on March 7. Its price-earnings multiple of 52, moreover, is miles away from that astonishing growth rate.
This year's unforgiving market has opted to dwell on the projected slowdown in capital spending into 2001 - which could open up a whole new can of worms in the form of customer inventory buildups and (worse yet) nonperforming accounts. Nortel Networks (NT) investors know all too well how fast that story can spook traders. But the more lionhearted insist that, stock price decline notwithstanding, the JDS Uniphase story hasn't changed - and the opportunity for getting in at a compelling level hasn't been this attractive in quite some time. "Our view is that no matter what the absolute carrier spending looks like, there will be a shift towards higher growth segments including optical networking," says UBS Warburg analyst Joseph Wolf, who rates the stock a Buy with a $160 target.
Merger date picked up by Light Reading:
lightreading.com
NTT opens fiber optic lines to rivals:
totaltele.com |
