100 Top Public companies: Down and Up on the Wasatch Front.

• Author: O'Neill, Marina

Year 2000 revenues for Utah's Top 100 Public Companies ranged from $1.9 billion for No. 1 ranked Zions Bancorp. -- up from its 5th place ranking last year -- to revenues just barely enough to buy an old jalopy.

Whether they've been selling vitamins to baby boomers, creating precise environments for semiconductors, or attempting to carve out their niche in the fast-changing high-tech industry, Utah's public companies had one wild ride in 2000.

The turn of the century has brought mega-mergers, market fluctuations to give jitters to investors and established business alike, and enough sweeping restructuring and name changes to make heads spin.

Year 2000 revenues for Utah's Top 100 Public Companies ranged from $1.9 billion for No. 1 ranked Zions Bancorp. -- up from its 5th place ranking last year -- to revenues barely enough to buy an old jalopy. Much to the dismay of their investors, half the companies listed reported negative earnings per share. Even the strongest were not immune: four of the top 10 ranked companies on this list suffered drops in revenue from 1999.

To protect their niche in this seemingly fickle marketplace, Utah's public companies are learning to continually retool and reposition themselves to avoid stagnation. Answering to investors adds challenge to this sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic dance.

"You're always trying to balance the management of business in the long term while putting together a pretty decent quarter ... and keeping your investors happy," explains Bruce Wood, chief executive officer of Salt Lake-based Weider Nutrition International.

"In order to stay prosperous, companies have to be both fast moving and fluid," says John Hickey, marketing director of emerging Orem-based telecom firm, Q Comm. "Those that aren't, go out of business in a hurry"

The following companies all used recent downturns in business to spur themselves to greater profitability in fiscal year 2000. Three have new CEOs on board; all are expanding their markets beyond Utak and the United States.

Utah's Top 190 Public Companies

Rebirth

Hoping to create a tangible symbol of its rebirth after three years of losses caused by a downturn in the industry that has been its mainstay, Daw Technologies is retooling its corporate image to reflect a more diverse, efficient business plan.

We've repositioned ourselves and the story is we need to communicate that to our customers and our industry," says incoming Daw President and CEO Michael Shea, "They're not real clear anymore as to what Daw is. We are very different than what we were three years ago.

Ranked 23rd in this year's listing, Daw has made an impressive financial comeback and begun applying its expertise creating "clean rooms," the pristine environments used mainly for manufacturing semiconductors, to other fast-growing fields, Telecommunications, pharmaceutical labs, kitchen appliances and the making of flat-screen TVs are some of the areas in which Daw plans to put its specialized technology to everyday use.

Utahns have known the Daw name since the family business was first launched in the 1960s. It gained national recognition after going public in 1993 during the boom in the semiconductor industry. But it was hard hit by the subsequent industry slowdown, which caused layoffs, negative earnings, and left parts of its huge West Valley plant unused.

"The narrower the niche, the more subject you are to cycles," explains Randy Johnson, Daw vice president and general counsel. "And we were a pretty narrow niche."

The aggressive effort to recreate itself seems to be paying off. At the end of 2000, Daw's revenues were up 16.4 percent, increasing to $52.6 million from the disappointing $45.2 million posted for 1999. Likewise, earnings increased to 21 cents per share from a fast-dropping negative 61 cents per share at the close of 1999.

Daw also restructured its management plan, announcing that long-time employee Shea would become CEO when founder Ronald Daw leaves the company this year. In March, the company signed a letter of intent to begin operations in China sometime this year. Contracts worth $19 million in new business were announced at the beginning of 2001.

"'Clean room' technology is still what we do, and I think better than anyone," Johnson says. But the new focus on diversifying is how the company plans to defend its place in the market. "One way you do it is by staying ahead of the game, by staying ahead of the pack."

Mom and Pop No More

Weider Nutrition International has come a long way since body building guru Joe Weider launched his first product in 1938. With revenues of $365 million for 2000 and nearly 900 employees worldwide, 9th ranked Weider survived and prospered as a privately held, family-run business before going public in 1997.

The fitness-conscious '90s brought unprecedented success to the company and its well-known Schiff supplements, Weider Sports, American Body Building and Tiger's Milk energy bar brands. But after its initial surge, the industry flattened, bringing a drop in profits. And rapid growth was not without its pitfalls for this once familyoperated business now turned public. As part of its efforts to reenergize business, the company named former $700-million Nabisco Ltd. president and CEO Bruce Wood its new top executive in June 1999. Wood has been at the helm of a new strategic plan as the company reorganizes, refocuses on its core products and develops its European operations that account for 30 percent of its business.

"The companies that populate the industry have had to grow up pretty quickly," Wood says. "They've moved from a small niche, or 'mom and pop' industry, to the major leagues." Although he does not expect another wave of the "exceptional growth" Weider formerly experienced, he does see room for growth within the industry.

The company can also count on new research, such as recent findings on Glucosamine's ability to ease arthritis, to spike demand for its vitamins and supplements, Wood says. "The market for sports participants can range from a dedicated weight lifter to the guy who plays softball on his company team." And a potentially huge market is beginning to turn to supplements to ease their aches and pains. "The population out there of aging baby boomers, such as myself, are finally getting to the point when we realize we're mortal," he says. "You've got an increasingly wealthy, well-educated population that's suffering from some of these things.

Marketing itself beyond sports participants to this larger baby boomer audience seems to be paying off. Weider Nutrition's 2000 revenues increased by $30 million from 1999. Shareholder returns appear to be following suit, with negative earnings cut to minus 4 cents per share from the more daunting minus 35 cents per share posted for 1999. "It was a pretty significant turnaround from fiscal year 1999 to the year 2000," Wood says.

Turning Bad News Into Good

Like Weider and Daw, Midvale-based Cimetrix Inc. has used a critical downturn to reinvigorate itself. Spawned by a Brigham Young University research project a decade ago, Cimetrix has made a name for itself developing software that puts robots in motion - potentially revolutionizing factory floor operations.

But an unsuccessful acquisition drained company resources, creating losses and forcing Cimetrix to pare back employees, fine-tune its research goals, and change managment. Company engineers worked to develop an in-house alternative to the problem-laden product it had purchased.

Ranked 49th in this year's list, Cimetrix posted revenues of $5.9 million for 2000, up from $3.9 million in 1999. Although its earnings per share remain flat, the company has begun recouping its losses. Cimetrix began this year by announcing a new alliance with big league player Siemens' Electronic Assembly Systems, based largely on the new software it developed to replace the failed product that had earlier depleted its finances.

"In the end I think we ended up in a better position and so did our shareholders," says Dave Faulkner, executive vice president of marketing. He credits "a very loyal group" of investors - some have described them as "fanatic" - for sticking by the company.

As a small, high-tech company, Cimetrix must continually...