Santa Ana’s Identive Group Inc., a maker of scanners, readers, cards and other security devices for buildings and computers, saw a wild swing on Wall Street Monday capped by an afterhours decline on plans to raise money with a stock sale.
Before the announcement, Identive’s shares rose as much as 20% before ending the regular session down 3% to a market value of $140 million.
It’s unclear why Identive’s shares rose so much early Monday. The stock, which sees about 1.5 million shares traded daily on average, has spiked on and off for the past month or so.
The company’s shares were off nearly 5% afterhours, following the share sale announcement.
Identive didn’t say how many shares it plans to sell in a pending offering.
The company said it plans to use the proceeds “to fund continued growth, acquisitions, working capital and general corporate purposes.”
Identive’s customers include federal, state and local governments here and abroad. It also sells to hospitals, schools and utility companies.
It has yearly sales of about $60 million.
The company came to have its headquarters here by way of an acquisition.
In 2009, predecessor Santa Ana-based Hirsch Electronics Corp. was bought by Germany’s SCM Microsystems Inc., a maker of smart card readers, for about $14 million.
Identive was formed in 2010 when SCM Microsystems combined with Switzerland’s BlueHill ID AG in a deal that ended with BlueHill holding 40% of SCM’s shares.
The newly combined company changed its name to Identive. Its shares trade on Nasdaq and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Identive’s operational headquarters is north of Munich with its on-the-books corporate headquarters in Santa Ana.
The Santa Ana operation, which has about 100 workers, includes an office and a 20,000-square-foot factory.
