Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508140034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Robert Kopstein, the 12-year-old company's president, chief executive officer and sole owner, said the company would offer its stock to the public possibly by October. Timing of the sale will depend on approval by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, he said.
Underwriters for the offering, which will be made on the Nasdaq over-the-counter market, are the investment banks of Piper Jaffray Inc. of Minneapolis and Unterberg Harris of New York, Kopstein said. Asking price for the initial offering of 1.4 million to 1.5 million shares will be about $10 to $15 per share, he said.
Kopstein said he has been considering a public offering for some time. Now is a good time to move because of the strength and activity in the stock market, he said.
The stock offering would provide the company's employees a chance to share ownership. Optical Cable has employee profit-sharing and bonus plans, but the stock offering would allow them to gain if the company grows, Kopstein said.
Proceeds from the sale would be used to help retire the company's debt, double the size of its facilities at Valleypointe Corporate Center and buy new manufacturing equipment. The offering also would raise the company's visibility with larger companies with which it does business, Kopstein said. The company has commercial, governmental and military customers in the United States and 60 other countries, with the majority of export sales in Europe and Asia.
In the past 12 months, Optical Cable produced more than 7,000 miles of fiber-optic cable - containing from a single fiber to hundreds of hair-fine glass fibers. The company's sales over that period totaled about $34 million, Kopstein said.
Employment reached 100 on Aug. 1, Kopstein said, up from a work force of 40 in 1990.
William Nash, Roanoke manager with Scott & Stringfellow Inc., a securities broker, said Optical Cable's offering could prove popular. ``If the interest in technology stocks is still strong in October, it would appear that interest in this issue would also be strong,'' he said.
Kopstein and a partner, Robert Thompson, both former workers at the ITT Electro-Optical Products plant in Roanoke County, formed Optical Cable in 1983 with financial help of two other Roanoke Valley residents. Kopstein bought out the others in 1989. In the early '90s, the company moved from a 22,500-square-foot building in Salem to one more than three times as large at Valleypointe.
Fiber-optic cable has much greater voice-, data- and video-carrying capacity than traditional copper wires. It can carry 10,000 telephone conversations simultaneously or transmit the entire contents of the Bible in one second.
by CNB