BY MIKE BOYER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The future looks bright for lighting and graphics manufacturer LSI Industries Inc.
The Blue Ash-based company has completed two acquisitions and announced a third in the last 18 months, reported record sales and earnings in fiscal 1998 and was recently included in Forbes magazine's "200 Best Small Companies" list.
But Chairman Robert J. Ready told shareholders at the company's annual meeting Thursday that LSI isn't about to relax.
"We're positioning ourselves with a lot of new products and innovations," he told shareholders. "We select niche markets and go after them with a vengeance."
Although lighting and graphics for the petroleum and convenience store markets represent just under 50 percent of the company's $189 million in sales, Mr. Ready said the company is continuing to focus on expanding its share of the market for general industrial and commercial lighting. That market, Mr. Ready said, is a $6 billion opportunity.
The acquisition of Kansas City-based Mid-West Chandelier Co., slated to close by year-end, is part of that strategy. The purchase of Mid-West and a related company, which have annual sales of $20 million, expands LSI into the interior retail and commercial fluorescent lighting fixtures market for the first time.
Grady McCauley, a North Canton, Ohio-based graphics company which LSI acquired in June of last year, has increased its business from about $14 million at the time of the purchase to $23 million currently.
Mr. Ready said LSI is continuing to seek acquisitions. The company has only about $1 million in debt and working capital of $43.8 million. "We're in the strongest capital position in our history," Ron Stowell, chief financial officer, told shareholders.
Mr. Ready said the company is also exploring other new opportunities. He showed shareholders a new product, an electric luminescent wire developed by a small Israeli company which LSI is studying for a variety of graphic applications.
LSI was ranked 167th on the recent Forbes list. The list is composed of companies with under $350 million in revenues showing the best profitablity based on five-year return on equity.
It's the third time LSI has made the Forbes list since the company went public in the mid-1980s. Mr. Ready called the award "a tremendous tribute to all our employees."
