Teradyne to close two local offices

By John Loesing Acorn Staff Writer

High-tech manufacturer Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE: TER) is vacating two large buildings in Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, the result of a company-wide retrenchment over the past year due to continued sluggishness in the chip and telecommunications sectors.

According to real estate sources, the Boston-based company will sell its recently renovated Building 4 in Agoura Hills on Agoura Road, east of Reyes Adobe Road. That building, which formerly was leased, already has been emptied.

The company is in the final stages of relocating from Building 5 in Westlake Village, a leased property on Agoura Road, west of Reyes Adobe.

Each building is about 100,000 square feet.

The company’s main three-building facility in Agoura Hills will remain in operation, officials said.

Teradyne briefly occupied a manufacturing site in Thousand Oaks, but later consolidated all operations on Agoura Road south of the 101 Freeway.

Teradyne moved to Agoura Hills in 1985, bringing with it about 450 employees who had been working at the company’s Warner Center location in Woodland Hills.

From 1995 to 1998, Teradyne nearly doubled its Conejo Valley-Las Virgenes employee count to 1,700 as it became the largest automatic test equipment manufacturer in the U.S.

Teradyne supplies a wide array of circuit board and semiconductor test equipment, high-performance interconnection systems and electronic manufacturing services.

In April 2000, at the height of the Internet bubble, the company stock peaked at $110 per share, but it fell sharply in conjunction with the technology slowdown that continues today.

Last fall, the company announced 1,000 jobs would be cut, but didn’t specify how many Agoura Hills employees would be affected.

Stock prices today are hovering in the $13 range.

For the second quarter, Teradyne reported a net loss of $50.7 million, or $.28 per share, on sales of $310 million

"While we are never pleased to report losses, our results were consistent with the guidance we provided early in the quarter," George Chamillard, Teradyne chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

     "Our guidance for the third quarter is for sales to be between $325 and $350 million, with a loss of 29 cents per share, plus or minus three cents, before any special items," Chamillard said.