Stanley Wainer to Step Down as Wyle Chief

Stanley A. Wainer, chairman and chief executive of Wyle Laboratories, has announced that he will step down as chief executive on June 14 and, as expected, recommended Wyle President Charles M. Clough as his successor.

Wainer, 62, will continue as chairman for three years at the El Segundo-based company, a distributor of electronic components and a major supplier of research, engineering and testing services to aerospace, energy and defense industries. Wainer, Wyle’s chairman since 1984, joined the company in 1962 as vice president of finance and was made chief executive in 1979.

Wainer said that he had been planning to relinquish his role as chief executive for two to three years and decided that the time was ripe for transition. Clough, who would become president and chief executive if Wyle’s board approves the recommendation, has been considered the prime candidate for the top management spot since Wainer lured him from Texas Instruments six years ago.

“This wasn’t a sudden decision,” Wainer said. “I’ve always thought of him as my replacement. . . . I’m going out at a successful time. We’re poised for future growth.”

Wyle had net income of $5.8 million on sales of $368 million in its 1988 fiscal year ended Jan. 31, compared to income of $4.3 million on sales of $307 million in fiscal 1987. Wainer said the jump in earnings--the company had only $3.4 million in earnings in 1987 if revenue of $900,000 from a land sale was not included--is partly the result of a successful consolidation during his tenure. The company has streamlined by selling a trucking subsidiary and a machine tool division.

“We decided which businesses we should be in,” Wainer said. “We chose scientific services and electronic marketing and--within those cores--focused on the business areas that were most profitable.”

Unlike many of its competitors, which only distribute and market semiconductors, Wyle helps customers design products for specific needs--such as computer circuit boards and for products used in the aerospace and defense industry, for example--and has suppliers manufacture products based on those designs.

“Stan Wainer has done a great job during a difficult period for distributors,” said Adam Cuhney, an analyst with New York-based Kidder, Peabody & Co. “Distributors are getting more pressure from producers to find more customers, and this is working.”

Cuhney said specially designed customized circuitry will be a wave of the electronics future.

Other analysts said Wyle has improved its position in its other operations. The company tests nuclear plant operations and analyzes designs and products used by the military and NASA. For example, in the wake of the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster, the company was asked to test new designs of a shuttle rocket.

“The company has had the potential to be above average,” said Richard Whittington of Prudential-Bache Securities. “It hasn’t reached that level, but it has a chance to attain it this year.”

Another analyst, Eli Sayegh of S. G. Warburg, said the company will lose some revenue from government clients because of expected budget cutbacks, but said the company should weather those changes. Sayegh said Clough, also the company’s chief operating officer, had a great role in the company’s recent financial success.

“Charlie Clough has been instrumental in turning the company around,” Sayegh said. “Clough wanted to be chief executive and the company--recognizing his achievements--decided to give it to him.”