The board said the move would place it closer to end demand for its products and help to manage its global operations. As its peer group is principally located in the US, Bookham said it could compete on an equal footing for investment and acquisition opportunities.
CEO Giorgio Anania said that in the four years since its IPO, its business has changed significantly. Moving its base to the US would more accurately reflect the current profile of the company, give it a better platform to execute its strategy, and position it closer to developments in the industry.
The shift reflects the reality that that most of the important networking companies are based in the US, and the market for Bookham’s components has taken off far more slowly than the company anticipated so it faces a more difficult struggle for orders than it originally expected.
After its IPO in 2000, during the dot-com boom, the company’s stock briefly reached 53.02 pounds ($97.9m), valuing the company at 12.9bn pounds ($23.5bn). But its customers’ orders book quickly shrivelled as carriers cut spending, and Bookham’s share price is now just 0.53 pounds ($0.96), putting a value of just 138.4m pounds ($251.9m) on the company.
However, the market downturn enabled Bookham to buy up the optical component operations of equipment operators Marconi Plc and Nortel Networks Corp, giving it a far more robust product portfolio to take on its major and much larger competitor JDS Uniphase Corp.
The Abingdon, UK-based company is still mired in losses and reported a net loss of 24.9m pounds ($39.8m) for the first quarter to March 31, up from a loss of 16.9m pounds ($27.1m) on revenue of 21m pounds ($33.6m), up from 5.6m pounds ($8.9m).
