Virata sees strong 1Q revenue, buys private company

Virata Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTA) announced Wednesday expectations for strong revenue in its first quarter, the acquisition of a privately-held company, and plans for a secondary offering.

Shares in the company closed at 50 Tuesday. The stock has been rising slightly since it announced hefty charges in its fourth wuarter, along with a stock split.

Virata sees first quarter revenue between $25 million and 27 million for the first quarter, an average 115 percent increase from the prior quarter's $12 million. Virata said it has already shipped three times more communications processors this quarter compared to the prior quarter, including its millionth Helium Chip.

The company will announce its complete results on July 25.

In a separate release, Virata said it is buying Excess Bandwidth Corp. for about 6.3 million shares of Virata, valued at around $315 million based on the stock's June 20 closing price.

In symmetric DSL (digital subscriber line) implementations, the upstream and downstream data rates are equal, making these DSLs most suitable for medium-sized or large offices. Virata said it expects this to be a high-growth market.

The transaction is expected to close in the third calendar quarter, and will be accounted for as a purchase. It will result in a charge related to the write-off of in-process research and development, Virata said.

Virata also announced Wednesday its intention to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an offering of 4 million shares of its common stock.

The company's competitors include Integrated Device Technology (Nasdaq: IDTI), Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Wind River Systems (Nasdaq: WIND) according to Hoover's Online.