Business briefs

21 Feb 2003

Including news from Lumenis, Corning, Newport, DRS Technologies and more.

•  Lumenis, the Israeli maker of medical laser systems, has reported "disappointing" sales and a net loss for the quarter ended 31 December 2002. The firm achieved revenue of USD 79.4 million, compared with USD 100.8 million for the same quarter of 2001. Net loss for the period was USD 39.7 million which included USD 19.8 million for asset write-downs and legal fees.

"Our fourth quarter results were clearly disappointing and we have identified the internal problems that contributed to the quarter's weak performance," said Arie Genger, the chief executive officer of Lumenis. "We are implementing programs to reduce our cost structure and inventories which we believe will show positive results in cash flow and profitability in the second half of 2003."

•  Newport, US, has seen its annual sales for 2002 slump to USD 164 million from the record figure of USD 290 million in 2001. The company also reported an annual loss from continuing operations of USD 70.9 million compared with a net income of USD 3.5 million in 2001.

•  JENOPTIK Laser Optik Systeme of Germany is moving its digital imaging division from Munich to Jena in April 2003. The company says this will create a "competence center" in Jena, which will make high-resolution camera systems for scientific and professional photography.

•  DRS Technologies, the supplier of defense electronics and imaging equipment, has received a USD 4 million contract from the US Navy to develop infrared sensing systems. The cash will be spent improving focal plane array (FPA) technology and its associated signal processing to suit the needs of thermal imaging and laser jamming systems. The award has a duration of 18 months.

•  CyberOptics, a US maker of semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment, has announced a fourth quarter revenue of USD 6.7 million, an increase of 57% from USD 4.3 million in the year-earlier period. The company also improved its net loss for the fourth quarter to USD 1.6 million compared with USD 3.2 million for the same quarter in 2001.

•  Corning, US, will provide Indian structured-cabling specialist D-Link of India with a steady stream of optical fiber until 2005. "We have been using Corning optical fiber in a variety of our premises cables over the last year," said D-Link's chairman and managing director K R Naik. "Through this agreement we will now begin to brand our products with the Plus Corning Optical Fiber logo."