100 Abbott Park Rd., Abbott Park 60064; 847-937-6100
Founded: 1900
Fiscal year-end: Dec. 31
Employees: 50,000; 17,000 in Illinois
Foreign sales: 49 percent of $10 billion
Chief executive
Duane L. Burnham, 54, since 1989
Cash compensation: $2,258,678, up 24 percent
Options granted: $4,799,915, up 37 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: None
Shares owned: 402,674 of 786.1 million
Largest shareholder: N.A.
Stock 365-day close
High: $44.75
Low: $36.125
May 1, 1996: $40.75
May 1, 1996, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased May 1, 1995: $1,053.98
Purchased May 1, 1991: $1,789.81
A regimen of expanding global sales, growing lines of new products, new uses for old products, leverage-enhancing collaborations and tight controls on expenses is keeping Abbott in the pink–even amid an ever-more-rigorous environment that emphasizes keeping health-care costs down.
Abbott received a big boost from its pharmaceutical operations and remains the world leader in the fast-growing adult nutritional business.
Abbott began the new year with promise. The FDA approved Norvir, a protease inhibitor that researchers say is raising hopes in the battle against AIDS.
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A guide to the Top 100 profiles
The Tribune’s business reporting staff profiles the Chicago area’s Top 100 companies, based on market capitalization as of May 1, 1996. Here’s a quick primer on the information you’ll find.
– The CEO’s cash compensation, including bonus and other compensation paid in 1995, along with the change from the prior year. The figure for the CEO’s stock holdings includes shares the CEO had the right to acquire within 60 days of the proxy statement’s issuance.
– Estimated current values of stock options granted the CEO, as reported in the proxy statement, and the change from the previous or prior year, as well as options and stock appreciation rights exercised during the year. In most cases, the current value of options granted is based on the assumption of a 5 percent annual rate of stock price growth.
– Theoretical total-return investment results for shares purchased for $1,000 a year ago and five years ago. The date on which those calculations are based is May 1. The results assume reinvestment of dividends on a quarterly basis.
The information in the profiles was obtained from the following sources:
– Company reports, including annual reports, public stock offering prospectuses and proxy statements.
– Interviews with company officials.
– Reports by securities analysts.
– News reports.
– Dow Jones News/Retrieval, an on-line service of Dow Jones & Co., New York.
– Bloomberg Business News, New York.
– TMS Stocks, a subsidiary of Tribune Media Services Inc., a unit of Tribune Co., Chicago.
– Morningstar Inc., Chicago.
– “First Chicago Guide,” published by Scholl Communications, Deerfield.
– “Hoover’s Handbook,” The Reference Press Inc., Austin, Texas.
