Telecom components provider Opnext files for IPO

November 6, 2006, Eatontown, NJ--Opnext, an optical-networking subsidiary of Hitachi, hopes to raise $150 million in an initial public offering of stock, according to a prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Opnext said it has applied to list its stock on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol "OPXT."

Opnext makes optical components for telecommunications networks, including a variety of transceiver modules, lasers, and subassemblies. The company was founded in 2000 as a subsidiary of Hitachi, which now owns 70% of the company's Class A common stock and 36% of its Class B stock. Of its 393 employees, 88 are located in the United States. The rest are in Japan, Germany and China. Most of the laser and photodiode chips that Opnext uses in its transceiver modules for optical communications are manufactured at the former Hitachi facilities in Komoro and Totsuka, Japan.

"Our expertise in core semiconductor laser and other optical communications technologies has helped us create a broad portfolio of products that address customer demands for higher speeds, wider temperature ranges, smaller sizes, lower power consumption and greater reliability," the company said in its prospectus. "We view ourselves as a strategic vendor to our customers and maintain longstanding supplier relationships with many of the leading telecommunications and data communications network systems vendors such as Alcatel, Cisco and Hitachi."

For its first quarter, which ended June 30, Opnext reported net losses of $3.5 million on revenues of $40.4 million, compared with losses of $11.5 million on revenues of $31.4 million for the same quarter in 2005. For the fiscal year ending March 31, Opnext reported losses of $30.5 million on revenues of $151.7 million, compared to losses of $32.7 million on revenues of $138.4 million for FY 2005.