Local JDSU unit posts big gain

Demand for JDSU's color-shifting technology generated a lot of green for the company's Santa Rosa division.

The unit, one of Sonoma County's largest tech companies, saw sales jump 21 percent in its just-completed fiscal year, JDSU said Wednesday.

JDSU's Flex Products, part of its Santa Rosa-based Advanced Optical Technologies division, makes high-tech pigments used to print most of the world's currencies. The colors shift when viewed from different angles, making currencies harder to counterfeit.

You won't find them on an Olympic gold medal, but the color-shifting pigments are on bank notes issued by the People's Bank of China to commemorate the Beijing Olympics.

Flex's ChromaFlair pigments also are found on drug labels and other product packages to distinguish them from fakes. And they're used to decorate products ranging from running shoes to cell phones.

The rising demand for these pigments helped JDSU's Santa Rosa division post $207 million in sales for the fiscal year ending June 28, up from $170 million in 2007, the company reported Wednesday.

Overall, Milpitas-based JDSU reported a fourth-quarter loss of $30 million on $390 million in sales, due largely to acquisition costs.

JDSU, formerly known as JDS Uniphase, acquired the Santa Rosa division from Optical Coating Laboratory in 2000 for $6.2 billion in stock. JDSU has about 650 employees in Santa Rosa.

The division's sales were boosted by demand for its pigments during the run-up to the Olympics and by new currency issues around the world, CEO Kevin Kennedy told Wall Street analysts Wednesday.

But growth could slow in the first quarter, he indicated. The segment has "surges and ebbs" in demand, Kennedy said.

Earlier this year, JDSU acquired American Bank Note Holographics, a New Jersey company that makes three-dimensional images that protect credit cards and other payment cards from counterfeiting.

The holographics company, now part of the Santa Rosa-based Advanced Optical Technologies unit, has added to the division's revenues. But banks are issuing fewer payment cards because of the slowing economy, Kennedy said.

The Santa Rosa division had $53 million in fourth-quarter sales, up 18 percent from the same quarter a year ago. But revenue was down from the third quarter, when Advanced Optical posted $56 million in sales.

The results were released after U.S. markets closed. JDSU stock, which closed Wednesday at $11.90 a share, dipped in after-hours trading.

You can reach Staff Writer Steve Hart at 521-5205 or steve.hart@pressdemocrat.com.