2775 Sanders Rd., Northbrook 60062; 847-402-5000
Founded: 1931
Employees: 48,000; 8,081in Illinois
Year-end: Dec. 31
Foreign sales: 2.1 percent of $22.8 billion
Chief executive
Jerry D. Choate, 57, since 1995
Cash compensation: $1,471,507, up 170 percent
Options granted: $6,030,852, up 232 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: None
Shares owned: 175,199 of 446.8 million
Largest shareholder: FMR Corp., 10.6 percent
Stock 365-day close
High: $46
Low: $28.875
May 1, 1996: $39.125
May 1, 1996, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased May 1, 1995: $1,308.29
Purchased May 1, 1991: N.A.
In 1995, Allstate became 100 percent publicly owned and set both revenue and earnings records, bouncing back from one of its worst earnings years ever after heavy losses from the California earthquake.
The nation’s second-largest insurer of homes and autos is focusing on standard and high-risk auto coverage and on life and annuity products.
CEO Jerry Choate has predicted sustained revenue growth in the high single digits. Allstate is limiting its exposure to natural disasters, cutting back on sales of property and casualty insurance in California and Florida.
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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.
