JDS Uniphase

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JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU) NASDAQ: JDSU is a company that manufactures and designs products for fiber optic communication and test equipment. It is headquartered in Milpitas, California, USA. It was formerly known as JDS Uniphase, prior to a re-branding of its corporate image on September 14, 2005. The legal entity is now called JDS Uniphase Corporation, whereas elsewhere the company always refers to itself as JDSU.

History

JDSU was formed by the 1999 merger between two fiber optic companies, JDS FITEL and Uniphase Corporation, and became known as JDS Uniphase subsequent to the merger. In 1981, JDS Fitel was founded by Jozef Straus, Philip Garel-Jones, Gary Duck, and Bill Sinclair. The "JDS" is short for Jones, Duck and Sinclair. JDS Uniphase had two corporate headquarters, one at 3000 Merivale Road, Ottawa, Ontario and the other in San Jose, California. Three other major fiber companies merged with JDS Uniphase during the telecom boom: OCLI based in Santa Rosa, California, and E-TEK Dynamics and SDL, both based in San Jose, California. With the downturn in the telecom business that started in 2000, JDSU moved its headquarters first to San Jose, California, and then in 2006 to nearby Milpitas.

JDS Uniphase stock was a high-flyer tech stock investor favorite. Its stock price doubled three times and three stock splits of 2:1 occurred roughly every 90 days during the last half of 1999 through early 2000, making millionaires of many employees who were stock option holders, and further enabling JDS Uniphase to go on an acquisition and merger binge. After the telecom downturn, JDS Uniphase announced in late July 2001 the largest (up to then) write-down of goodwill and business losses in business history: $45 billion. Employment soon dropped as part of the Global Realignment Program from nearly 29,000 to approximately 5,300, many of its factories and facilities were closed around the world, and the stock price dropped from $153 per share to less than $2 per share. Especially hard-hit were the R&D activities and researcher jobs related to producing new OC-768 (40 Gbit/s) and OC-192 (10 Gbit/s) products, which were largely terminated in light of the shift in market interest to continuing with legacy OC-48 (2.5 Gbit/s) data rate products.

The logo of the former JDS Uniphase was an open multi-colored box, intended to evoke a feeling of thinking "outside the box" among employees. The logo of the new re-branded JDSU represents the cycle of innovation that begins and ends with the customer.

On September 23, 2005, JDSU announced a reverse stock split one-to-eight to one-to-ten.[1] On December 2, 2005 JDSU stock holders authorized the reverse stock split after its 2005 annual meeting.

Epitaxx was absorbed by JDS Uniphase in the 1990s; Alka Swanson was the General Manager of this branch of the corporation.

As of March 2006, JDSU stock has been making somewhat of a rebound. Analysts like Jim Cramer laud the stock, citing the new interests that telecommunications companies now have in fiber optic telephone and internet services, will bring a rebirth to this once reeling company. Verizon's FiOS is an example of a fiber optic service that may benefit JDSU in the future.

Shareholder litigation

The state of Connecticut filed lawsuit against the company and four key executives, claiming that they knew about and hid from company shareholders advance knowledge of the company's impending downturn in 2001. Unlike most similar lawsuits, which are dismissed or settled before trial, Connecticut's lawsuit is set for trial in late October, 2007.^[1]

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