30 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, 60606; 800-257-0902
Web site: www.ameritech.com
Founded: 1983
Employees: 74,359; 25,680 in Illinois
Year-end: Dec. 31
Foreign sales: Less than 1 percent of $16 billion
Chief executive: Richard C. Notebaert, 50, since 1994
Cash compensation: $2,983,427, up 25 percent
Options granted: $5,682,379, up 29 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: None
Shares owned: 964,659 of 1.1 billion shares
Largest shareholder: Ameritech Employee Savings Plan, 9 percent
Stock: 365-day close as of April 15
High: $50.25
Low: $27.94
April 15: $44.12
April 17, 1998, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased 1997: $1,627
Purchased 1993: $2,836
Ameritech’s core business, local phone service, provides 20.5 million lines to customers in the Midwest; it has 3.2 million wireless customers. It’s No. 2 in security monitoring and is in paging and cable TV.
After years of failing to obtain permission to enter long-distance, Ameritech is putting that on the back burner. It bought controlling interest in the Danish phone company, signaling an intensified interest in Europe.
Ameritech also vowed to offer local service to residents of St. Louis to move its core business out of its home region.
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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.
