150 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 60601; 312-346-6600
Website: None
Founded: 1926
Employees: 24,200, 1,826 in Illinois
Year-end: Dec. 31
Foreign sales: 18 percent of $5.14 billion
Chief executive: Roger W. Stone, 62, since 1979
Cash compensation: $934,000, down 36 percent
Options granted: $1,098,472, up 1 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: none
Shares owned: 1,226,203 of 99.3 million
Largest shareholder: Wellington Management Co./The Vanguard Group, 9.8 percent
Stock: 365-day close as of April 15, 1997
High: $17.37
Low: $9.75
April 15: $10
April 18, 1997 value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased April 18, 1996: $638
Purchased April 18, 1992: $375
Stone Container is a paper company, with manufacturing and sales facilities in North America and four other continents. It specializes in the production and sale of pulp, paper and packaging products.
Stone landed hard when paper prices dropped. Sales plunged 30 percent and the company reported a $134 million loss in 1996. Stone also suspended its dividend and its stock has been in a two-year slide.
Still, Wall Street analysts say Stone appears to have hit bottom and they expect the company, with better control over its debt, to benefit from an expected upturn in the paper market later this year.
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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.
