TeleQuest, Maker of Offbeat Designer Phones, Moving to San Diego
TeleQuest, a fast-growing maker of offbeat designer telephones, plans to relocate from Burbank to San Diego in June.
The disclosure was made by the three-year-old company in a preliminary prospectus filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the company’s proposed initial public offering of stock.
Eric Geis, a TeleQuest executive vice president, said Monday that most of the company’s 50 employees, and all of its key executives, will make the move.
Last year, TeleQuest’s sales more than tripled to $17.8 million, and its net income of $1.7 million was up more than 10 times the $167,000 earned in 1984.
Company officials have projected revenue of more than $25 million this year and $67 million by 1988 through increased sales to retailers, former Bell System companies including Pacific Bell and telephone equipment makers such as Northwestern Bell, which buy phones from TeleQuest tailored to their specifications.
As a result of its rapid growth, TeleQuest’s current offices in Burbank have been cramped for months, with boxes stacked to the ceiling.
In November, company officials disclosed that the firm would move to a larger location this year, but indicated that it probably would be in the Los Angeles area. According to the prospectus, TeleQuest’s move is expected to cost $250,000.
The company said its new headquarters will be in the Miramar area, just north of Miramar Naval Air Station.
The assembly of TeleQuest’s telephones will continue to be performed by contractors in Hong Kong and South Korea.
TeleQuest’s products are novelty and high-tech designer telephones, used mostly in homes. They include a telephone shaped like a pair of lips, a one-piece flexible phone that must be bent in half to be answered and another made to look like a baseball on top of three bats.
According to the prospectus, TeleQuest will offer 800,000 shares of stock to the public. An additional 110,000 shares will be offered separately by the company’s three principal officers: the chief executive, Robert E. Lee, and executive vice presidents Geis and Thomas P. Eisenstadt.
The three were founders of the firm along with Henry Marcheschi, who serves as chairman of the board but is not active in the firm’s day-to-day operations. Lee will offer 45,000 shares, Geis will offer 35,000 shares, and Eisenstadt 30,000 shares, the prospectus said.
TeleQuest expects the initial price of its stock to be $11 to $13 a share, which would mean the company would raise $8.8 million to $10.4 million from the offering.
The company’s stock is expected to be listed through the National Assn. of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, or NASDAQ, system under the symbol “TELQ.” The underwriters for TeleQuest’s offering are Salomon Brothers, the New York-based investment banking house, and Hambrecht & Quist, the San Francisco investment firm.
TeleQuest declined to comment further on its relocation or stock offering, citing the SEC’s so-called “quiet period.”
