A COMPANY making components for Internet link-ups is expected to be valued at more than 1bn at its stock market debut today.

Bookham Technology is raising the money to help fund its expansion, which will create 180 jobs at a new factory in Swindon and another 100 at its headquarters at Milton Park, near Abingdon.

The founder, Dr Andrew Rickman, an engineering graduate of Imperial College, London, owns a third of the company, which he named after his birthplace in Surrey.

He set it up in 1989 with four people at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton. It now employs 250 people in the UK and has offices in North America, Japan and France.

Dr Rickman's breakthrough was to use silicon, a cheaper material with proven manufacturing methods, for the switches and circuits needed to control the optical signals used for Internet traffic. He patented the system, called ASOC.

Bookham now makes 10,000 chips a month and plans to double its production by the end of the year.

The new factories - at Milton Park and in Swindon - will start operating in June and build up to full production by the end of the year.

The company is expected to make a 19m loss this year on 25.1m turnover, before breaking even next year.

Bookham's institutional offering of shares on the London Stock Exchange closes at 2.30pm. Trading will start on April 18.

Story date: Tuesday 11 April

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