Newport relocates laser division HQ

24 Jun 2009

IRVINE, CA, 23 June 2009 – Newport Corporation (Nasdaq: NEWP) today announced that it will relocate and consolidate its Spectra-Physics Lasers Division headquarters from its five-building campus in Mountain View, California, to a single new manufacturing, research and development, and office facility located at 3625 Peterson Way in Santa Clara, California. The move will improve the efficiency of the Division's operations, enabling it to reduce the amount of space it occupies by over 20%, from 171,000 square feet to 132,000 square feet. In addition, selected business and manufacturing operations being acquired, subject to the close of the purchase of the New Focus business from Oclaro, Inc., which the company previously announced on June 3rd, will be integrated into the new facility. The company highlighted that the relocation of the Lasers Division headquarters is another positive step it is taking to enhance its competitive position during this period of challenging macroeconomic conditions.

"We are very pleased to be able to move our Lasers Division headquarters to this new, state-of-the-art facility that was originally built for a similar type of production environment," said Robert Phillippy, Newport's president and chief executive officer. "The building represents a significant upgrade of our lasers manufacturing infrastructure, and the consolidation into a single facility will enable further improvements in the Division's work flow while at the same time significantly lowering our facilities costs over the lease term."

Mr. Phillippy continued, "Our recently announced transaction with Oclaro will allow us to eliminate the high-fixed-cost diode fabrication facility in Tucson, Arizona, while sourcing diode lasers for our Spectra-Physics Lasers Division from Oclaro at very competitive price levels. Now, the move of our Lasers Division headquarters to a smaller, more modern manufacturing site will further enhance the improvements to our operations that are already well under way within the Division. We expect the combination of these actions to have a positive impact on the Division's financial performance."

The company noted that it expects to complete the move of the Lasers Division headquarters and the relocation of the selected New Focus business and manufacturing operations by the end of 2009.