Corporate Veteran Takes the Reins at Ingram Micro
Ingram Micro Inc., the world’s largest distributor of microcomputer products, Tuesday named a new chief executive who said he would work for no salary.
Jerre L. Stead, 53, who also was named chairman, said he would take compensation in stock options to be granted if the company meets certain financial goals.
Stead, a corporate veteran with experience in global technical markets, succeeds Linwood Lacy, who resigned in May, two months before Ingram Micro announced plans for an initial public offering of stock.
In a phone interview Tuesday, his first day on the job, Stead said that if he meets the company’s goals, he’ll eventually wind up with options to buy 2.8% of the company’s stock at its initial offering price.
The options could be exercised gradually over a two-year period ending in April 2000. “That’s a great way to start the new century,” said Stead, who already commands a personal multimillion-dollar fortune. He previously was chairman and chief executive of NCR, an AT&T; subsidiary that the communications giant is planning to spin off.
Terms of Stead’s compensation will be spelled out in the company’s securities filing for its planned offering of 20 million shares. The company, which is owned by Ingram Industries Inc. of Nashville, Tenn., said it plans to push ahead with its public offering, which is awaiting approval of securities regulators and the Internal Revenue Service.
If the offering is priced at the maximum level of $14 a share, the company would raise $280 million. An analyst said the company has indicated it plans to begin trying to drum up interest in the offering from institutional investors after Labor Day.
Stead brings top-level management expertise to an industry giant intent on maintaining its lead.
A native Midwesterner, Stead worked 22 years at Minneapolis-based Honeywell Inc., where he advanced through various management posts in the U.S. and Europe.
In 1987, he became president and chief operating officer of Square D Co., a Palatine, Ill., electrical manufacturer, and, two years later, was promoted to chairman and chief executive. In 1991, after France’s Schneider Groupe mounted a hostile takeover bid, resulting in its $2-billion-plus buyout of the Palatine company, Stead jumped to AT&T.;
He oversaw the last stages of the financial turnaround of the telecommunications giant’s unit that sold internal phone systems to corporations--a company that is now part of Lucent Technologies Inc., in Murray Hill, N.J.
Analysts also credit him with slashing losses at AT&T;’s NCR unit. An NCR spokesman also said he built its sales to $8.4 billion in 1994 from $7.2 billion the year before.
At Ingram Micro, Stead said he’s excited about the prospect of running such a rapidly growing company. His predecessor, Lacy, built its sales from $2 billion five years ago to $8.6 billion last year. Net income during that time jumped to $84.3 million from $30.2 million.
Lacy surprised the computer distributing industry when he abruptly resigned after a management battle with Martha Ingram, chairwoman of the company’s parent. At the time, the company cited “irreconcilable differences” over corporate issues. Lacy declined comment.
When asked how he would handle the controlling Ingram family interests, Stead said, “I work really hard on creating trust both ways.” He noted, for instance, that he didn’t ask for an employment contract.
Stead most recently served for less than a year as chairman and chief executive officer of Legent Corp., the Vienna, Va.-based software developer, before its acquisition last year by Computer Associates International Inc., of Islandia, N.Y. As part of the buyout, he received a pretax $16.5-million payoff in stock options.
