Newport Beach-based Jazz Technologies Inc. has hired UBS Securities LLC to look at “various strategic alternatives” for the maker of chips for other companies.
Jazz didn’t outline Wednesday what alternatives it plans to look. Presumably, they include a possible sale of the company.
Shares of the company closed up more than 6% Wednesday on a market value of about $25 million.
Jazz has seen its stock fall by roughly 75% in the past year as it struggles to find its place as a U.S. contract chipmaker in an industry dominated by big Asian rivals.
Jazz also reported fourth-quarter results on Wednesday.
The company said it saw a preliminary loss of $4.6 million, widened from $3 million in the third quarter.
Jazz said the fourth-quarter figure is preliminary pending final accounting of a $1.9 million gain relating to the early buyback of debt for less than what Jazz would have paid later. The debt was issued in last year’s acquisition of the company by a group of investors.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $8.2 million, down from $10.5 million in the third quarter. The company generated about $4 million in cash in the quarter.
At the end of December, Jazz had about $10.9 million in cash and debt of $141 million.
Revenue was $54.8 million for the quarter.
Jazz got its start as the chip making arm of Rockwell International Inc.’s semiconductor unit, which made chips for modems.
Rockwell spun off the business as Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. in 1999.
In 2002, Conexant split off its Newport Beach chip factory as Jazz Semiconductor.
Last year, Apple Inc. alums Gil Amelio, Steve Wozniak and Ellen Hancock bought Jazz after raising money from investors in 2006.
Jazz runs one of only a few plants that actually make chips in Orange County,most companies, including Irvine’s Broadcom Corp., design chips here and have them made at factories in Asia.
Irvine-based Microsemi Corp. also runs a chip plant in Garden Grove, while Semicoa Semiconductors has one in Costa Mesa.
