Stock report to include Tekelec

Tekelec, a Calabasas-based company that designs, manufactures and markets networking systems for the telecommunications industry, is a new listing this week on The Acorn’s Eye on Local Area Stocks.

Tekelec’s customers include telecommunications carriers, network service providers, equipment manufacturers and contact center operators. The company’s specialty is network signaling switches, although it also is a leading developer of packet telephony solutions, diagnostic tools and value-added applications.

The company went public in 1986 in the area of test equipment.

"We’re still in that business although it’s much smaller because the infrastructure side has grown much faster," said Erik Randerson, Tekelec’s director of investor relations.

"The network systems group has been the fastest growing piece," Randerson said.

Tekelec has more than 1,000 employees with offices not only in Southern California, but North Carolina, Texas, Great Britain and Japan.

Competitors include the likes of Alcatel, Nortel and Agilent.

Tekelec’s symbol on the NASDAQ market is TKLC. Tekelec stock jumped past $18 on Monday with news that the company invested $16.5 million in two leading vendors of packet telephony solutions, Telica and BroadSoft.

TKLC reached a 52-week high of $35.90 on June 5, 2001 and a low of $11.50 on Sept. 19, 2001. Current market capitalization is $1.12 billion.

––John Loesing