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Technology Stocks : Nanovation Technologies,Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerry Miller who wrote (317)	2/4/2000 3:25:00 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 417

<<Avanex shares soar 435 percent in market debut...FYI... NEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Shares of Avanex Corp. (NasdaqNM:AVNX - news), which makes fiber optic-based products, rose more than fivefold on Friday following the company's $216 million initial public offering. The shares were up 157 at 193 in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq stock market, a jump or more than 435 percent. The IPO of 6 million shares priced at $36 a share through lead underwriter Morgan Stanley. On Wednesday, Fremont, Calif.-based Avanex dramatically raised the projected price range on the IPO $28 to $30 a share from $13 to $15. A source close to the deal said the IPO was more than 30 times oversubscribed. The warm reception given to the stock appeared to confirm analysts' belief that Wall Street is hungry for companies like Avanex, a maker of photonic processors designed to increase the efficiency of optical networks. ''I think there is a demand-supply imbalance for publicly available (fiber optic-related) companies for people to invest in,'' Raj Srikanth, as analyst at First Albany, said on Wednesday. ''There aren't many pure-plays in this fiber optic equipment market,'' agreed Kenan Pollack, a money editor at Hoover's Online. In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Avanex said its goal was to eventually help develop a ''next-generation, all-optical network'' capable of handling the rapid growth in Internet traffic. ''Companies like these are seen as powering the next generation,'' said Pollack. ''These are the steel and railroad stocks of a hundred years ago.'' Todd Brooks, a general partner at Mayfield Fund, which owns 9.3 percent of Avanex, said, ''(The company) hopes to be to the optics world what Intel is to the computer world. That is, to drive the price performance and functionality of the industry through technology and engineering.'' Brooks serves on Avanex's board of directors. For the six months ended Dec. 31, Avanex reported net revenue of $10.9 million and net loss of $19.8 million. Avanex customers include No. 2 U.S. long-distance telephone service provider MCI WorldCom Inc. (NasdaqNM:WCOM - news) and Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - news), the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker. Avanex has 62.5 million shares outstanding.>>