
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 27, 1994                   TAG: 9408180025
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE FIRM SOLD TO LITTON

Litton Industries Inc. of Beverly Hills, Calif., has purchased FiberCom Inc., the Roanoke-based maker of equipment for high-speed computer networks. Terms of the sale were not disclosed in the companies' announcement Tuesday.

FiberCom will remain in Roanoke as an operation of Litton's Poly-Scientific division, which is located in Blacksburg. The FiberCom name will be retained.

Litton said it plans to retain all of the about 180 people that FiberCom employs in Roanoke. Litton has purchased FiberCom's 38,000-square-foot headquarters building on Orange Avenue and assumed the lease on the company's 30,000-square-foot plant on Melrose Avenue.

FiberCom was founded in 1982 by Robert Martinet, Al Bender and Jack Freeman, three former employees of ITT's Electro-Optical Division in Roanoke. The company was privately owned with about 100 stockholders, most of them in the Roanoke area.

The company designed, engineered and manufactured fiber-optic networks for commercial aircraft, ground-to-air data communications and in-flight entertainment systems. Among FiberCom's major customers were NASA, the Department of Defense and the Boeing Co.

Last year, a portion of FiberCom's engineering staff moved to Raleigh, N.C., to form NetEdge, an independent but affiliated company focused on developing commercial applications for the networking equipment made by FiberCom. NetEdge, which is headed by Bender, was not included in the Litton purchase.

Martinet, who succeeded Bender as president of FiberCom, will remain with Litton Poly-Scientific as general manager of its Roanoke operations.

Poly-Scientific supplies electronic security systems and fiber-optic products to aerospace and military markets.

L. Allen Bowman, Poly-Scientific president, said FiberCom immediately would add $25 million in annual sales to his company's business. "In addition, we will gain broader technological capability and entry into new markets," he said.

When Martinet announced last month that a sale of FiberCom was pending, he said the buyer planned to expand the company's business by 20 percent a year. An advantage of the sale was the ability of Litton to put more money into developing FiberCom's markets, he said.

Litton has 49,500 employees in business units producing advanced electronics, industrial automation systems and services, resource exploration services and marine engineering and production. For its fiscal year ended July 1993, the company reported sales of $5.48 billion and net income of $182.3 million.

"Our position in fiber-optic systems technology makes a perfect match with Litton's strength in component production and its ability to invest in a growing market," Martinet said.

by CNB