CHATSWORTH FIBER-OPTICS FIRM TAKES GAMBLE ON IPO.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

CHATSWORTH - Optical Communications Products Inc. will wade into waters frequented by a crosstown fiber-optics rival when it holds its initial public offering today.

How well it will fare is debated by analysts, who express ambivalence over the offer. They think the timing of the offer could yield a tepid response but believe the fiber-optics sector is so hot the IPO is sure to be strong.

Optical hopes to raise $126 million through the issue of 1.05 million shares priced between $10 and $12. Spokesman and Chief Operating Officer Mohammad Ghorbanali said he could not give further details.

Steven Tuen, an analyst at IPO Value Monitor, said in a report earlier this week that he expects the response to Optical to be ``lukewarm at best'' given weakened earnings reports from majors in the sector.

But Paul Bard, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, a Greenwich, Conn.- based company that manages the IPO Plus mutual fund, said the stock is priced to move and that the depressed market could make it a post-IPO bargain.

``It might not have a big initial pop to which some optical stuff has been accustomed, but it gives customers who can't get into IPOs a chance to get into it at a reasonable price,'' Bard said.

Analysts believe investors will be impressed by Optical's numbers - it netted $7 million in fiscal year 1999 on sales of $36 million - though it relies heavily on two major clients. Industry giants Cisco and Alcatel make up nearly half of the company's business, but Bard said demand for the optical components so far outstrips supply that Optical's strengths outweigh its weaknesses.

``That's a risk if you have a few big clients, but they all do, and Cisco's not a bad client to have,'' Bard said.

The company, with headquarters on Knapp Street, was founded in 1991 and has 291 employees. It specializes in providing fiber-optic components for metropolitan area networks, the middle ground between telecommunications networks that extend across states and so-called ``last mile'' networks that provide businesses and residences with service at the neighborhood level.

Optical's competitors include Lucent Technologies, Finisar and Luminent, a division of Chatsworth's MRV Communications that is currently planning an IPO of its own.

Optical will trade under the ticker symbol OCPI on the Nasdaq exchange.