630 Dundee Road, Northbrook 60062; 847-498-7070
Web site: None
Founded: 1988
Employees: 4,500; 350 in Illinois
Year-end: Dec. 31
Foreign sales: 44 percent of $552.2 million
Chief executive: Donald N. Boyce, 59, since 1988
Cash compensation: $893,450, up 8 percent
Options granted: $648,496, down 6 percent
Options, stock appreciation rights exercised: $5,554,285
Shares owned: 749,519 of 29.3 million
Largest shareholder: KKR Associates, 29.4 percent
Stock: 365-day close as of April 15
High: $36.94
Low: $25
April 15: $36.44
April 17, 1998, value of $1,000 in company stock:
Purchased 1997: $1,400
Purchased 1993: $3,106
Idex, whose business units manufacture a variety of pumps and pump-based equipment, predicts that 1998 will be its 10th consecutive growth year. Much of that growth has been by acquisition.
The company is focusing on core competencies and getting out of unrelated businesses. Last year, Idex sold two businesses that made vibration-control equipment and metal-fabrication machinery.
Although 44 percent of Idex sales are to foreign buyers, the company is largely untouched by problems in Asia. Only about 5 percent of sales are to Asian customers. Europe accounts for the bulk of foreign 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.
