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To: re3 who wrote (105473)	6/26/2000 12:58:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Ike, I'm going to be buying this IPO this week. You might want to also. Remember how Toronto based 724 solutions did? >Washington, June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering Inc., a Canadian manufacturer of equipment used to test and monitor fiber optic networks, will seek to raise as much as $132 million through an initial public offering. The company, based in Vanier, Quebec, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell 6 million subordinate voting shares. Exfo will market the shares at $20 to $22 each, according to a registration statement filed with the SEC. Founded in 1985 as a two-person supplier of portable handheld test instruments, Exfo now has more than 650 employees and its products are distributed in excess of 70 countries. The company said it has been profitable every year since inception. Telecommunications companies are increasingly using fiber optics lines for their networks because the technology offers greater capacity and speed than traditional copper wires. A single stand of fiber can handle Internet access for 17 million homes. Customers can use Exfo's equipment to test the quality of fiber optics networks they are deploying, diagnose and repair problems within an optical network, and monitor signals to more quickly detect and diagnose problems. The company also says that its equipment is better suited for optical networking than conventional equipment designed for electrical transmission systems. Revenues rose to $29.1 million during the six months ended Feb. 29 from $18.7 million one year earlier. Net earnings rose to $3.7 million for the six months ended Feb. 29 compared to $2.2 million for the six months ended Feb. 28, 1999. Germain Lamonde, 41, has been chairman and chief executive ever since he helped found the company in 1985. Lamonde holds a bachelor's degree in physics engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal in Canada and a master's degree in optics from Laval University in Canada. Exfo expects the stock sale to raise $116.2 million after expenses if its shares sell for $21 each. The company will use about $27.3 million to repay debt, with the balance devoted to working capital and general corporate purposes. The company will have 44.7 million shares outstanding after the IPO. That includes 6.7 million subordinate shares that receive one vote each and 38 million multiple voting shares that get 10 votes each. Underwriters will include Merrill Lynch & Co.; RBC Dominion Securities; Wit SoundView; and CIBC World Markets. Exfo plans to have its shares trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol EXFO. Jun/12/2000 14:30 ET