When shareholders of Hormel Foods Corp.

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

When shareholders of Hormel Foods Corp. gather for their annual meeting tonight, it should be business as unusual.

Unusual in that the company continues to flex its muscles and stretch its wings in the meat and food products industry.

There appears to be no such thing as business as usual at Hormel Foods.

Witness the record-breaking financial performance for the year ended Oct. 30. The company set new records with net earnings, dollar sales and tonnage volume.

But those records merely broke records set a year earlier.

It will be remembered that 1999 was the year of the stock-split, too, and records set by Hormel Foods International Corp.

So good is it for Hormel Foods that the company’s stock is considered one of the "blue chips even tech investors can love."

Just this month, CBS MarketWatch reported fund manager Art Bonnel of the U.S. Global Investors Bonnel Growth Fund as praising Hormel Foods as one of 36 firms that raises dividends "good for the long haul."

According to CBS MarketWatch, Hormel Foods has raised cash dividends each quarter of every year since 1976.

"The list provides an argument for the buy-and-hold strategy, he said, since his stocks have gained an average of 15.4 percent annually compared to 11.5 percent on the S&P 500 over the same 24-year period," MarketWatch reported.

Because investors in the new economy have largely sidelined stable but unglamorous stocks that distribute cash dividends in favor of their tech stock counterparts, the so-called "old line stocks" haven’t appealed to investors in the high-flying Internet companies.

Bonnel said stocks, such as Hormel Foods, "deserve a place in the asset allocation of a diversified portfolio."

"Today, everyone’s focusing on growth and technology in the new electronic age, but we still feel that dividends are important over the long haul," Bonnel told MarketWatch.

"What a lot of people need is a steady cash flow and an ever-increasing cash flow to keep up with inflation," Bonnel said. "For investors, especially people nearing retirement, these companies are very valuable to have in a portfolio."

Bonnel singled out Abbott Labs, Albertson’s, American Home Products, Automatic Data Processing, Bandag, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Coca-Cola, Hershey, Johnson Controls, Kimberly Clark, Wal-Mart and Winn Dixie Stores, among his blue chip stocks to watch for the "long haul."

Tonight, Hormel Foods’ shareholders will gather in Knowlton Auditorium at Austin High School to hear Joel W. Johnson, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer, report on still another unusual year of success.

The shareholders meeting for the Austin-based multinational marketer of consumer-branded meet and food products begins at 8 tonight.