Abbott Labs Leads Magazine’s Best-Managed Company List

Abbott Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corp., H. J. Heinz Co., Masco Corp. and J. P. Morgan & Co. have been chosen by Dun’s Business Month magazine as the five best-managed companies of 1986.

In the business magazine’s annual survey, scheduled for release today, the five companies were chosen by proving “that commitment to goals, careful planning and attention to detail are the tickets to market dominance.”

Abbott Laboratories, with 1986 sales of $3.7 billion, “has emerged as the most diversified, profitable company in the health-care industry,” said the magazine, a Dun & Bradstreet publication.

The publication also said: “Abbott maintains its leadership position in the health-care industry through constant technological innovation.”

Last year, Abbott’s 13.9% profit margin was the industry’s highest, and its 26.8% return on equity was one of the best among all U.S. corporations, the magazine said, adding that analysts expect the company’s 1986 profits to jump 17%.

Digital Equipment Corp., the magazine said, has moved from a leader in minicomputers to the No. 1 position in the industry’s growing field of networking.

H. J. Heinz won a position on the best-managed list in part by its “ability to muscle market share with both new and old brands around the world,” the magazine said.

Masco Corp., a building materials company, was praised for its marketing strategies and a roster of products “amassed in a series of shrewd acquisitions over the past twenty years.”

J. P. Morgan & Co., parent of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., the nation’s fifth-largest commercial bank, has managed to prosper despite the energy, farm, real-estate and Third World loan headaches that have plagued the banking industry in 1986, the magazine said.