Thursday June 3, 6:57 pm Eastern Time
Uniphase, JDS FITEL eye more partners after match
By Lydia Zajc
TORONTO, June 3 (Reuters) - The marriage between fiber optic makers Uniphase Corp. (Nasdaq:UNPH - news) and JDS FITEL Inc. (Toronto:JDS.TO - news) is not yet consummated but already they're poised to seek new partners, Uniphase's chief financial officer said on Thursday.
JDS Uniphase could be very active on the mergers and acquisition front following expected shareholder approvals at meetings planned for June 28, Anthony Muller told a technology conference organized by CT Securities.
''This is a business where growth is very, very high,'' commented Duncan Stewart, fund manager at Tera Capital. ''It's absolutely necessary for companies to buy up other ones.''
Muller, who will remain chief financial officer of the merged entity, also told Reuters that the new firm will be adding more production sites, almost certainly in North America.
The companies, which announced a $6.1 billion merger deal in late January, began courting each other at the same time because their products were complementary and they sold to the same clients, such as International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news), Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - news) and Nortel Networks Corp. (Toronto:NT.TO - news).
San Jose, Cal.-based Uniphase makes light-driven products, such as lasers which push data along fiber-optics networks, while JDS FITEL, in Nepean, Ontario near Ottawa, makes components that boost the capacity of networks to carry more voice, video and information.
Unlike many mergers, this one will produce no job losses because business is booming, Muller said.
''In terms of layoffs and redundancies, we absolutely do not expect any: in fact if you look at the hiring rate of JDS FITEL, they are struggling to hire enough people to keep up with their demand growth,'' Muller added. ''The only redundancy we've found to date is that we will need only one booth at trade shows, instead of two.''
On Thursday JDS FITEL shares fell C$3.55 to C$101.45 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Uniphase shares dropped $6.25 to $134.88 on Nasdaq.
($1=$1.48 Canadian)
|
