TTM Technologies Inc., a maker of circuit boards for networking gear and the military, is set to close two California factories and move some of the work to its headquarters in Santa Ana.
TTM will close its Hayward and Los Angeles facilities “due to continued weak demand in North America for commercial printed circuit boards and backplane products.”
The move is expected to save about $14 million per year, the company said.
The circuit board manufacturing that was done in Los Angeles is set to be transferred to its factories in Santa Ana, Utah and Wisconsin.
The assembly work that was done in Hayward will be transferred to plants in Shanghai and Stafford Springs, Conn., the company said.
Some 63 workers are set to lose their jobs in Los Angeles and 84 jobs will be lost in Hayward, according to Clay Swain, TTM’s vice president of marketing.
TTM doesn’t plan to do any hiring as manufacturing work shifts to Santa Ana and other locations, Swain said.
TTM has been hit hard on the commercial side of its business, where it makes circuit boards that go into networking devices.
One of its biggest customers is networking kingpin Cisco Systems Inc., which has been cautious with its outlook for the tech industry.
Sales to defense contractors, such as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co., have been steadier.
“We have a major position in aerospace and defense and it has been the bulwark of our strength in the last few quarters as a lot of our commercial orders slowed down,” said Steve Richards, chief financial officer. “Commercial networking orders kept sliding a bit in the first half of the year, but our aerospace and defense customers kept ordering at their usual run rate and sometimes more strongly.”
Investors seem to have confidence in TTM’s prospects.
TTM’s shares are up more than 80% since the start of the year on a recent market value of about $450 million.
Name Change
Orange-based Marshal8e6 Inc., a maker of Web filtering servers and software for small businesses and schools, is modifying its name to cap a year of big changes.
Marshal8e6 was formed when Orange’s 8e6 Technologies Inc. and Britain’s Marshal Ltd. combined last year.
Its global headquarters stayed here and its international operations are headed from Marshal’s offices near London.
The company, which sees about $50 million in yearly sales, now is going by M86 Security.
The new name is “easier to say and easier to repeat in a foreign language,” Chief Executive John Vigouroux said.
This year, the company has hired a slew of executives.
Most recently, it nabbed a marketing chief and a vice president of product management.
Before that, it named Vigouroux chief executive after acquiring Utah’s Avinti Inc., a small company that makes software to filter out viruses and other harmful software in e-mails.
The privately held company has seen its growth speed up after the deals.
It’s added nearly 1,000 customers since the start of the year.
“We’ve done really well with the integration,” Vigouroux said. “The combination was fruitful and made us really relevant.”
The name change announcement went hand-in-hand with the release of two software products that integrate the technology acquired with the Marshal and Avinti deals.
The rebranding marks one of several incarnations of M86 Security.
8e6 Technologies was founded in 1995 as Log-on-Data Corp. by George Shih and Michael Bradshaw.
Following an infusion of venture funds in 2000, the company changed its name to 8e6 Technologies.
Shih stayed on as acting chief executive of Marshal8e6 until he was replaced by Vigouroux.
Broadcom Customers
Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. recently landed three customers for its latest chips that go into digital TVs that connect to the Internet.
The company landed customers LG Electronics Inc. and Humax Co., both of South Korea, as well as Taiwan’s Zinwell Corp.
Broadcom’s chips are set to be designed into next-generation high-definition digital TVs, the company said.
Broadcom’s chips pack a lot of different functions into a tiny chunk of silicon.
The chips connects TVs to home networks and other electronics, such as media hubs, PCs and portable music players, allowing users to stream music, photos and movies to and from their TVs.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine’s IOGear Inc., which designs and markets computer accessories, is planting two trees in Cameroon in Africa for every product it sells as part of a “Road to a Million Trees Campaign” this month … KPMG LLP found in a recent survey of 130 technology executives that 66% expect their industry to recover faster than the rest of the U.S. economy … Stealthy Laguna Beach startup InterActive Activities Inc., which runs Kijubi.com for booking outdoor activities online, was handpicked to launch at San Francisco’s TechCrunch50 conference this week.
