Southland Tech Supplier Plans First Stock Sale

Tustin-based Cherokee International Corp., which manufactures power supplies for use in computing and wireless devices, said Tuesday that it hopes to join the new wave of stock IPOs.

The company said it plans to raise as much as $92 million in an initial public offering to pay debt and fund business activities.

Cherokee, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, didn’t say how many shares it planned to sell or give an expected price. That information is expected to be filed later.

Brokerages Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. were picked to manage the sale.

Cherokee, which said it hoped to use the ticker symbol CHRK and list its shares on Nasdaq, had a net loss of $12.1 million on sales of $78.8 million in the first nine months of this year.

The company said in its filing that it has been hurt by lower business capital spending since 2000, when sales peaked at $143 million. Cherokee also said it is “substantially dependent” on a small group of customers, including Nortel Networks Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.