"The Good thing about working here, even when you've got a lousy day you move home, jump in bed," states McAthie. "It really does make your life simpler ."

 Select Comfort is a producer, marketer, and retailer of air filled futon mattresses. Made with no conventional coil springs, the futon mattresses have been promoted as being more comfortable and providing a high quality nights sleep for customers, and as relieving back and other body discomfort. The company also makes foundations to replace conventional box springs.

 Founded In 1987, Select Comfort had only three retail shops in 1992. But by the end of 1998, the firm had 264 shops. McAthie states an extra 75 should start in 1999.

 A Portion of the growth can be attributed to the alliance Select Comfort shaped in December with Bed Bath & Beyond stores, one of the major home decor chains, based on Alan Rifkin, who had been managing director of study principles in Piper Jaffray Inc. (now U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray) when it underwrote Select Comforts IPO. Six months before, there were only three Select Comfort retail outlets at Bed Bath & Beyond shops; now there are 13. Rifkin claims the next 25 will be added each year from 1999 and 2000.

 Apparently The investors have started to see the options. Since the provider's initial public offering (IPO) in December 1998, the business's stock has climbed from an offering price of $17 per share to $23 in early March. With annual revenue of $246.3 million, up 33.5 percent from last year, the business looks like a fantastic bet for investors, Rifkin states.

 "I Believe they are uniquely positioned to continue their growth rate at least 30 35% over the line and also at least 50% compounded annually on the bottom line over the next two to three decades," Rifkin says. Select Comforts net income for 1998 is $5.2 million.

 Select Comfort, at No. 64, is your top debuting company in Corporate Reports Public 200 list this season. It far outranks the other businesses that are new to the list or are coming back following absences of a year or more. In actuality, Select Comfort is one of the few true IPOs on the listing. Lots of the firms on this years list that have no prior year ranking noted weren't on previous lists, since they had moved or were spinoffs of different businesses.

 At Some time when investors appear to be going for high tech and Internet stocks (watch Seattle based Amazon.com Inc.'s January trading price of $199 per share), why can a company that produces air beds be appealing to investors?

 "The Sector is $8 billion," says Rifkin,"rising at about 6 per cent per year with strong connections to the housing environment, which proceeds to hit a record level month after month after month. At this time they have less than a 4% market share, but I presume that will more than double in the next three years."

 Futon Mattress industry leaders include Sealy Corp.. Inc., Serta Inc., Simmons Co., and Spring Air Bedding Inc., otherwise Called the"Four S's." Cleveland established Sealy, using a sizable Minnesota existence in its 125 employee plant in St. Paul, leads the market with 18 percent market share. Select Comfort is relatively small, with roughly 3.5 percent market share, however its vertical integration (the business manufactures, markets, and also marketing its own merchandise ) gives it a different advantage.

 "They're Able to command the entire process and catch margins on either side of the business," Rifkin says.

 At Select Comfort's Plymouth facility, the futon mattresses are made around the first floor, and upstairs, telemarketers accept calls prompted by direct mail pieces, which accounts for around 35 percent of the organization's sales. Retail outlets and street shows accounts for the remainder.

 McAthie Says the organization's biggest obstacle is getting the sort of name recognition the Four S's do. However, if clients include Select Comfort instead, they generally buy it, '' he states.

 Two companies Accomplished the tough task of averaging a

Doubling of revenue Each year by 1993 98. List chief Video Update

Is at the ideal stage To head like listing youthful enough to really have a

Low base year revenue Figure, however mature enough to take advantage of

it. Continuing to Surprise are the growth stars of the'90s,

UnitedHealth Group and Best Buy Co., that have stayed among the

 In a point where Comparisons with the ever bigger base become

More difficult.

"Most People don't know what brand of Chair mattress they sleep " McAthie says. "When you are in the market to get a mattress, we wish to be in the choice set, and then after we get you in there, then it's a pretty simple sell.

 "I Would also say our IPO helped our consciousness," he says. Select Comforts direction had previously considered an IPO from the autumn of 1997 but decided against it due to the attack from United Parcel Service, Select Comfort's primary shipping services.

 In Further efforts to get name recognition, Select Comfort purchases more than 200 magazine advertisements yearly. The company also uses celebrity spokespersons, such as radio announcers Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh; along with sports stars, for example golfer Tom Lehman and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jake Reed. In reality, a little creativity on the corporation's component made Reed an enthusiastic spokesperson for the firm.

 "We Learned about [Reed's back] operation," says McAthie,"proceeded and called him and said,'Gee, we'd love to assist you,' and we gave him a bed. And he'll sit and tell you,'The reason I got back to enjoying this season is because of Select Comfort.'"

 But Select Comfort's market to customers isn't without challenges. Consumers just get a new futon mattress each 11 or 12 years, McAthie states. And the cost is extreme.

 "Certainly They have an extremely high average ticket," says Rifkin. "It is roughly $1,200 generally ."

 However, McAthie claims that Select Comfort futon mattresses are competitively priced (prices vary from $499 for a"classic" double seat mattress and foundation to nearly $2,000 for the"ultra" king size futon mattress and foundation).

 To Prove to its customers that"sleeping on air" is far better than sleeping on additional bunk beds, Select Comfort commissioned studies in major universities such as Stanford, the University of Memphis, along with Duke. Based on McAthie, these studies showed that the Select Comfort futon mattress enhanced spinal alignment through sleep, which those who slept on Select Comfort futon mattresses obtained 24 percent more rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep (the deepest type ) than those who slept traditional futon mattresses. Furthermore, McAthie claims his futon mattress relieves back pain for the majority of sufferers.

 In Reality, McAthie is so enthusiastic about his product that it's tough to get him to talk about his firm. McAthie arrived to Select Comfort in October 1995 from Minnetonka based Fingerhut Cos.. Inc., where he was senior vice president and CFO. Rob Hawthorne, president and CEO, was Minneapolis based The Pillsbury Brands Group for five years prior to joining Select Comfort in 1977.

 "The Management is certainly very capable of leading their growth," says Rifkin." [Hawthorne] heads an extremely competent management team that is, in my opinion, equal to the job at hands of rolling these stores out."

 McAthie Says the business is focusing on several new products, including adjustable beds and bed frames appropriate for your home atmosphere. Other projects incorporate the use of low frequency noise to deal with back pain, even a technology that might be incorporated into both beds and seats. Select Comfort is also experimenting with home delivery and setup services. Now, customers must install the beds themselves after UPS provides them.

 "We've Always obtained new things on the drawing board which we are considering, to constantly improve our existing product in addition to present new goods," McAthie says.

 He Suspects that's enough to provide any investor a decent nights sleep.

 Calendar Year 1998 has been a time of restructuring and retrenching for Minnesota's publicly traded firms. Ironically, their preparations for the new millennium consisted of both bulking up and trimming down efforts geared toward creating not merely the bulk to compete for sales in the international marketplace, but also the efficiency to turn huge earnings into bigger profits.

 All these Preparations were completed at the cost of 1998 sales.

 But First things first: Composite revenue of the 200 largest public firms reached $201.13 billion in 1998. The year over year increase of just 3.7 per cent, the smallest gain in almost a decade, has been a direct result of losing four of the year's best 50 firms. Those four businesses donated $13.01 billion to the 1997 revenue total of about $193.97 billion.

 Composite Earnings of $7.85 billion were down a whopping 32.7 percent from 1997's $11.66 billion... and only $1.63 billion of this decrease can be traced to people four missing companies. The remainder is largely attributable to both the listing amounts and the record amounts of special charges. UnitedHealth Group ($900 million), The St. Paul Cos. ($656 million), and 3M Co. ($493 million) marginally combined for $2.05 billion in one time pretax prices. No fewer than 18 other high 50 firms took comparable prices, albeit to a lesser degree. One time prices also contributed to this painful statistic: Only 135 of our 200 businesses turned an yearly profit. https://futonadvisors.com/40-winks-stays-wide-awake-sleep-chain-builds-name-straight-talk/

 Additional Proof of retrenchment: A grand total of 980,300 employees finally report to the list's 200 headquarters. That figure represents a decrease of 1.4 percent in the prior calendar year.

 MAIN LIST

The Financial information in the main record was distilled from quarterly reports and SEC documents issued by the companies themselves. Position is by 1998 revenue from continuing operations, as calculated by the amount of their prior four quarters with no respect to fiscal year end. Earnings figures are after taxes and extraordinary items, but until any chosen dividends. 1 time earnings or losses which exceed 10% of earnings will be footnoted.

 Additionally Included in the main list: earlier year rank, headquarters town, phone number, stock symbol, along with a brief business description.

 INDEX

To Find a particular company, search for its rank from the alphabetical index of companies on pages 48 and 49.

 25 FASTEST GROWING LIST

The "fastest growing" list ranks companies according to their earnings growth over the past year period in fiscal 1993 through fiscal 1998. We calculated annualized growth rates for all businesses who reported: (1) a full year of results in the base year 1993; and (2) a revenue increase from 1997 to 1998. A"fastest shrinking" record, ranking the lowest 10 businesses, is also presented.

 TOP 10 LISTS

The Top 10 lists highlight calendar year business accomplishments in eight specific categories. Averages for total assets and stockholders' equity were calculated from the company's quarter ending balance sheets.

 METHODOLOGY

The CRM 200 is a listing of the biggest publicly traded companies in Minnesota as measured by annual revenue. To determine this amount, we summed monetary results from the monitoring four quarters

 GREATEST PROFITS:

Excluding nonrecurring Prices, 3M would nevertheless be Minnesota's

Highest earning public Company at $1.526 billion despite a challenging

 Year globally, Which helped produce a $100 million income

decline. However, Restructuring at 3M allowed U.S. Bancorp and its own album

 Earnings to end 3M's stranglehold on No. 1. Absent this year are

Four of those usual Suspects: Norwest (transferred ). The St. Paul Cos..

 (merger charges), Northwest Airlines (attack ), also UnitedHealth

Group (restructuring).

Return on equity

Driven by unit quantity Growth of 3 percent domestically and 7 per cent

 Internationally, General Mills' earnings have fulfilled fiscal 1999 growth

Goals through six months. Comparable store sales increases and

Gross margin Improvements resulted in a increase of 172 percent in

Musicland's 1998 Earnings, to a record $38 million. But equally

Important in this Particular category: The balance sheets of those

 Two companies feature outsize debt to equity ratios.

 RETURN ON ASSETS (businesses with at least $10 million in assets):

Rimage Corp. earned Mere than $5 million on an asset base of $16.3

Million, winning this Year's prize to do the most with all the

 least. The company is Positioning itself as the"output for

The net." Strong expansion in the CD Recordable merchandise line,

Along with enhanced Gross profits, contributed significantly to

Rimace's record earnings. In an effort to broaden public ownership,

Rimage's board Declared a 50 percent stock dividend in November.