200 Wilmot Rd., Deerfield 60015; 847-940-2500
Web site: www.walgreens.com
Founded: 1901
Employees: 85,000; 15,749 in Illinois
Year-end: Aug. 31
Foreign sales: None of $13.4 billion
Chief executive: L. Daniel Jorndt, 56, since Jan. 1998
Cash compensation: $1,587,077, up 17 percent
Options granted: None; N.A. for 1996
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: $2,358,929
Shares owned: 928,987 of 494.7 million
Largest shareholder: N.A.
Stock: 365-day close as of April 15
High: $37.25
Low: $20.81
April 15: $34.06
April 17, 1998, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased 1997: $1,617
Purchased 1993: $3,990
Walgreens is the country’s biggest drugstore chain, and it continues to expand into new markets with an increasing number of store openings each year. The company showed double-digit growth in sales and earnings in fiscal 1997.
An era ended in January when Charles R. Walgreen III retired as chief executive officer after 27 years in the post and turned over the reins to L. Daniel Jorndt.
Walgreens is planning additional expansion to reach 3,000 stores by the year 2000. The company expects aging Baby Boomers to fuel growth in prescription drug sales.
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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. Here’s a quick primer on the information you’ll find:
– The CEO’s cash compensation, including bonus and other compensation paid in 1997, 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.
– Estimated current values of stock options granted the CEO, and the change from the prior year, as well as options and stock appreciation rights exercised during the year. In most cases, the value of options granted is based on an assumption of a 5 percent annual rate of stock price growth, or is determined using the Black-Scholes option pricing model.
– Theoretical total-return investment results for shares purchased for $1,000 a year ago and five years ago. The date on which these calculations are based is April 17. 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.
– Bloomberg News, New York.
– “Hoover’s Handbook,” The Reference Press Inc., Austin, Texas.
