Client/server customer interaction software house Astea International, Chalfont, Pennsylvania, is postponing its planned offering of 3m shares, which it intended to fund its expansion plans into the Asian market. Astea also wants to add a third product area – sales force automation – to its portfolio of field service and help desk kit and is looking to acquire a company to that end. Astea says it will wait for a better mood in the market and in the meantime will attempt to win it over by boosting its marketing efforts and adding more VARs and resellers to increase bandwith. It hopes to go for the stock option again next quarter, and offer 1.3m new shares and 1.7m shareholder stocks, which includes 1m shares of founder, CEO and president Zach Bergreen, who founded the company without any venture capital. Meanwhile, Sigma Circuits, Inc, Santa Clara, California, says it won’t pursue its planned public offering of 2.7m shares of its common stock because of weak stock prices, a poor book-to-bill printed circuit board (PCB) ratio and decreased product demand. Sigma is also closing its Costa Mesa PCB operation which it says duplicates its Santa Clara plant since its acquisition of Citation Companies last year. It will take a one-time pre-tax charge of approximately $3 million in the fourth quarter ending June 30 1996 for the closure.
