Brocade Reportedly Putting Self Up for Sale

(Reuters) – U.S. network equipment maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has put itself up for sale, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday, triggering a 14 percent jump in the company’s shares.

The paper, citing people familiar with the matter, said Oracle Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co were potential bidders for the company, but a deal was not imminent and Brocade may not even go ahead with a sale.

The report said spokesmen for Brocade and HP declined to comment, and officials at Brocade, HP and Oracle were not immediately available for comment to Reuters.

Brocade, which acquired Foundry Networks last year, makes routers and switches for blade servers, as well as software to help companies manage data networks.

To compete with much bigger rival Cisco Systems Inc, the company has been bolstering sales partnerships with large technology vendors such as International Business Machines Corp and Dell Inc to expand their customer reach.

In an interview with Reuters last month, Brocade Chief Executive Michael Klayko had said he did not see a need for Brocade to merge with or acquire another company, citing the company’s expertise and partnerships.

The company expects revenue in fiscal 2009, which ends in October, to be $1.94 billion to $1.96 billion. It has also forecast revenue for the following year to rise to around $2.25 billion to $2.45 billion. (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando in New York and Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)