ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603120116
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
Optical Cable Corp. of Roanoke County, which is managing its own effort to sell $15 million of stock to the public, has received final approval for the offering from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company expects to know by the end of this week if public response has been enough for the stock to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
After receiving SEC approval last week, the company said it has begun accepting subscriptions to buy up to 1.5 million shares of common stock at $10 a share. The company has requested that offers to buy its stock be received by Wednesday but said it may continue to accept subscriptions after that date until all shares are sold or the sale is otherwise terminated.
Optical Cable is managing the stock sale without the aid of underwriters, the traditional way such companies handle initial stock offerings.
Instead, the company advertised the availability of the stock in regional and national newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and even delivered unsolicited copies of its prospectus to some Roanoke area households.
Investors from 40 states, including 850 people in Virginia, have expressed interest, Robert Kopstein, the company's president and owner, said Monday.
First Union National Bank is acting as the escrow agent and the stock transfer agent for the sale, Kopstein said. The bank will distribute the shares that are sold. If enough shares aren't sold to enough individual shareholders to meet Nasdaq's minimum requirements for a first offering, the bank will return purchasers' money, Kopstein said.
Because the company is marketing the stock on its own, local brokers won't be involved until a secondary market develops, when original investors sell their shares.
The company plans to use proceeds from the sale to help retire roughly $3.5 million in debt, double the size of its plant at the Valleypointe Corporate Center, and buy new manufacturing equipment. The offering also will help raise the company's profile with larger companies with which it does business and provide employees a chance to share in ownership of the company, Kopstein said.
Optical Cable makes a broad range of fiber-optic cables for the transmission of large volumes of data, video and audio communications.
The company had sales of slightly more than $36 million for its fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31, and net income of $8.2 million, according to the prospectus.
Optical Cable was formed in 1983 by Kopstein and then-partner Robert Thompson, both of whom had worked at ITT Electro-Optical Products in Roanoke County. Kopstein bought out Thompson and other partners in 1989, and in the early 1990s moved the company's plant from Salem to Valleypointe.
Copies of the stock prospectus can be obtained by calling the company at (800) 622-7711 or (540) 265-0690 or downloaded from the companies site on the World Wide Web at http://www.occfiber.com
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