Advanced Thermal Plans to Offer 4 Million Shares

Advanced Thermal Technologies Inc., a unit of B/E Aerospace Inc. that designs temperature control systems for semiconductor manufacturing, plans an initial stock sale worth as much as $44 million to become a publicly traded company.

Anaheim-based Advanced Thermal plans to offer 4 million shares of Class A common stock for $9 to $11 a share, said Wednesday’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the shares sell at the middle of the range, the stock sale would raise $40 million.

Parent B/E Aerospace is a Wellington, Fla.-based company that manufactures aircraft seats and galley systems such as coffee makers and ovens for commercial airline cabins, as well as oxygen delivery systems. B/E Aerospace will own 88% of the voting power of Advanced Thermal common stock after the IPO, the filing said.

B/E Aerospace shares rose $1.38 to close at $13.88 on Nasdaq. Shares have risen more than 64% since the beginning of the year.

The market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment is projected to be $30.3 billion in 2000, according to research firm Dataquest, cited in Advanced Thermal’s SEC filing.

Sales of temperature control systems for semiconductor manufacturing will exceed $200 million in 2000, the research group said. The company is also estimating that the retrofit market for temperature devices could be as many as 50,000 systems worth as much as $1.5 billion, the filing said.

For the year ended Feb. 26, Advanced Thermal had a net loss of $1.7 million on revenue of $6.8 million. For the year ended Feb. 27, 1999, the company had a net loss of $2.1 million on revenue of $517,000. Almost all of its sales have been generated from one customer, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials Inc., the company said in its filing.

Advanced Thermal said it will compete directly with Neslab Instruments Inc., FTS Systems Inc., as well as British Oxygen Corp., and Tokyo-based SMC Corp.