ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220047
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
Innotech Inc., a Roanoke company that manufactures equipment and supplies for making plastic eyeglass lenses, has completed its initial offering of $30 million of public stock.
The sale has been completed quickly, in only a few days after its start March 14. The company and its stock underwriters in February issued a prospectus announcing plans to issue stock.
``It's a done deal,'' is the way P. Kent McCammon, a Norfolk-based securities analyst with Scott & Stringfellow, described the offering Thursday.
Company officials did not return calls Thursday seeking comment on the stock sale.
The company offered 3 million shares of its common stock to the public at an initial price of $10 per share. Underwriters for the sale were the investment bankers Lehman Brothers and Schroder Wertheim & Co. of New York and Hambrecht & Quist of San Francisco.
Innotech plans to use the income from the stock offering for working capital and to buy new equipment, expand its sales and marketing efforts, develop new products and increase inventory and supplies, according to the prospectus.
The company makes a machine that allows an eyewear business to make lenses quickly in their offices rather than having to send the work to a laboratory, resulting in a cost savings estimated as high as 75 percent. Innotech makes money by selling the machine and the supplies it uses.
Innotech has projected that half of the nation's 40,000 eyewear locations are its target market for its lens-making systems. The company, which began selling its system in 1993, significantly increased its sales from 161 machines in 1994 to 250 last year.
Innotech employs 138 and has offices, research laboratories and manufacturing and warehouse operations on Airport Road. It plans to set up another manufacturing plant in Petersburg.
As a start-up company with a heavy investment in research and development, the company has had operating losses. Its accumulated deficit stood at $28.4 million Dec. 31.
Innotech's stock, which is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, closed Thursday at $10, unchanged from Wednesday, on trading of 222,000 shares. The stock's high in its short life was $10.37 1/2 and its low was $10 a share.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB