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Technology Stocks : Oclaro, Inc. (Avanex-Bookham) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kiriwuth Path who wrote (40)	2/4/2000 9:02:00 AM
From: Neil H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2293

Hot IPO Avanex ready for liftoff By Larry Dignan ZDII Avanex Corp. (Nasdaq: AVNX) priced 6 million shares at $36 for trading Friday. The company recently raised its price range to $28 to $30 a share from $13 to $15. Avanex, which makes processors for optical networks, is likely to be among the hottest initial public offerings of the day. Morgan Stanley is underwriting the IPO with an assist from Lehman Brothers, Robertson Stephens and US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. The company should do well because its positioned in one of the hottest markets -- optical networking. Optical networking related companies such as Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR), JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq: JDSU), which just acquired E-Tek Dynamics (Nasdaq: ETEK), and Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq: CIEN) have all posted nice runs recently. In regulatory filings, Avanex said its photonic processors boost performance and miniaturization, reduce complexity and increase cost-effectiveness as compared to current alternatives. As for the financials, Avanex revenue is light, but growing quickly. For the six months ending Dec. 31, the company reported revenue of $10.9 million. In the same period a year ago, the company didn't have any revenue. Losses for the six months ending Dec. 31, were $19.8 million. As of December 31, the company had an accumulated deficit of $50.2 million. "We began operations in October 1997. Until April 1999, we were a development stage company, and our only activities were research and development," the company said in filings. Like most companies in this sector, Avanex's revenue depends on a small number of customers. Three customers accounted nearly all the company's revenue for the last three quarters. MCI Worldcom (Nasdaq: WCOM) accounted for 92 percent of sales for the quarter ended October 1 and 85 percent for the quarter ended December. 31. MCI WorldCom, via its venture fund, will also own a stake in Avanex following the IPO as will Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT). Avanex cited Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU), Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT), Alcatel (NYSE: ALA), , Fujitsu, JDS Uniphase and E-Tek Dynamics as competitors. In December, E-Tek filed a lawsuit against Avanex for unfair hiring practices

To: Kiriwuth Path who wrote (40)	2/4/2000 11:33:00 AM
From: RavBruce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2293

I also got 50 shares from my MSDW broker. I wish I could have gotten more (and that I used the money from UPS for better uses!). From what I understand factors as to who gets shares include assets at the firm, potential assets you can bring (your own, family, friends), how much they want to keep you. My father recently took two big accounts from MSDW when our broker retired. I like the new guy and he wants to keep me as a client, which is probably why he got me shares. I am not trying to boast but explain the types of factors that go into this type of decision. It may be different if IPO's move to an auction system like some are suggesting (but then we wouldn't have these pops). I am a strong believer in buying stocks for their venture capital investments (see the thread below). I would buy MSFT or CSCO, or INTC for their portfolio of investments and not for any one stock (which is probably a tiny total of what they own and are worth). It is hard for us to evaluate the potential of a new IPO. These companies have research departments that are constantly on the lookout for the best new technologies and get better prices than we ever can. I strongly recommend some of Cramer's discussion on this stuff on THESTREET.COM (I may have posted some of it to the thread but I can't remember). Good luck, Bruce Subject 32032