1 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago 60601; 312-661-4600
Website: www.unitrin.com
Founded: 1990
Employees: 7,400; 825 in Illinois
Year-end: Dec. 31
Foreign sales: None of $1.52 billion
Chief executive: Richard C. Vie, 59, since 1992
Cash compensation: $762,800, up 33 percent
Options granted: $537,406, down 47 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: $1,873,513
Shares owned: 132,359 of 37.4 million
Largest shareholder: Henry E. Singleton, 19.2 percent
Stock: 365-day close as of April 15, 1997
High: $56.37
Low: $44.25
April 15: $50.12
April 18, 1997 value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased April 18, 1996: $1,113
Purchased April 18, 1992: $1,800
Unitrin, through subsidiaries, provides life and health insurance, property and casualty insurance and consumer finance services to individuals, families and small businesses in the Midwest and West.
Revenues jumped last year, primarily because of the late-1995 acquisition of Milwaukee Insurance Group. Profits were flat as other life and health insurers cut into the company’s market share.
This year’s acquisition of Union Automobile Indemnity Co. will swell the top line again, but competition will be rugged in life and health. Spending on new technology should cut costs in the long run.
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A guide to the Top 100 profiles
The Tribune’s business staff profiles the Chicago area’s Top 100 companies, based on market capitalization as of April 15, 1997. Here’s a quick primer on the information you’ll find.
– The CEO’s cash compensation, including bonus and other compensation paid in 1996, 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.
– The company’s largest shareholder, as listed in the proxy statement.
– Estimated current values of stock options granted the CEO, as reported in the proxy statement, and the change from the 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 April 18. 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.
