A local company is getting some attention from a big name: James Unruh, who used to run Unisys Corp.
Unruh’s investment firm, Scottsdale-based Alerion Capital Group LLC, has funded Worldlink Integration Group Inc., a technology services company in Irvine.
Unruh lead Unisys for much of the 1990s.
Alerion made an investment in the “high seven figures,” said David Clarke, president and chief financial officer at Worldlink.
He declined to be more specific or say what kind of equity stake the company gave to Alerion.
Worldlink, which did about $7 million in revenue last year, has a traditional tech business model with a slight twist.
The company provides networking cabling and other services across the country. It does so without a “standing army” of workers.
Instead, Worldlink taps workers around the country,sometimes at other small companies,whenever they’re needed to keep costs down on a project.
Worldlink bills itself as somewhere between big consultants such as IBM Corp. and smaller, one-off shops that have just a few local customers.
It might sound like this has been tried before. Worldlink contends its model is working.
The company has funded itself up to now and is profitable. Last year it saw revenue growth of better than 300%.
Customers have included Jack in the Box Inc. and Sears Holding Corp.
Projects have included installing credit card readers at 700 stores of Petco Animal Supplies Inc. in 13 weeks.
Clarke said Worldlink intends to use the funding for marketing, among other things. It targets retailers and healthcare and hospitality companies.
Worldlink has the kind of low-cost approach Unruh said he likes to see.
“Worldlink has, in fact, a very attractive business model,” he said.
The company is the first tech services deal for Alerion and just the fifth investment it’s made in any company. Worldlink also is Alerion’s first Orange County investment.
Unruh became chief executive of Unisys in 1990 at a time when the company was struggling under heavy debts and straddled with fading mainframe computers that were expensive to make.
To get the company on a course of profitability, he cut jobs and exited laggard businesses while shifting to more services.
He left in 1997 and founded Alerion a few years later.
“I wish we (Unisys) had the variable cost structure Worldlink has,” Unruh said.
Companies that sell servers and networking gear aren’t providing as much service and repair work, leaving an opening for Worldlink, according to Unruh.
“The Unisyses of the world have helped create the situation,” Unruh said.
More OC investments could be on the way for Unruh’s firm, he said.
“I don’t think it’s the last,” he said.
Former FileNet Chief Joins Board
Ted Smith, who founded and grew Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp. during its formative years, has a new gig.
The former chairman and chief executive of FileNet has joined the board of Slidell, La.-based Vue Technology Inc., a provider of radio tag technology products.
Smith led FileNet until 1998 and now sits on the board of the software provider, which helps organize data and documents for businesses.
Smith also is chairman of the board of the Mind Institute, a nonprofit offshoot of the University of California, Irvine. Mind provides software for educational video games and music training that help elementary students improve their math skills.
Vue Technology sells antennas for radio frequency identification tags, which store more information than traditional bar codes and are easier to scan.
RFID “promises to dramatically transform the way manufacturers and retailers track goods throughout the supply chain,” Smith said.
Memory IPO
A competitor of OC’s memory products makers has gone public,but it’s off to a rough start.
Fremont-based Smart Modular Technolo-gies Inc., one of the few makers of memory boards and cards for computers and electronics that isn’t based in OC,debuted at $9 on Feb. 3, down from its earlier initial public offering forecast of $10 to $12.
The company raised about $160 million.
On Smart Modular’s first day of trading, the shares fell nearly 6%. The company counts a market value of about $400 million.
In Smart Modular’s filings, it identifies a handful of OC companies as rivals, including industry leader Kingston Technology Co. in Fountain Valley, Rancho Santa Margarita-based Viking InterWorks Inc., part of Sanmina-SCI Corp., and Santa Ana-based SimpleTech Inc.
Smart Modular joins SimpleTech as one of the few publicly traded memory products makers. SimpleTech has a market value of about $200 million.
The industry is a tough one. For memory boards used in computers, profits are low and volume is key. Things are better with flash memory cards for consumer electronics, though competition still is steep.
In December, SimpleTech lowered its fourth-quarter revenue guidance to $60 million to $63 million, down from an earlier estimate of $70 million.
