FOOL CONFERENCE CALL SYNOPSIS*
By Debora Tidwell (MF Debit)

Chicago Miniature Lamp, Inc. <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NASDAQ: CHML)") else Response.Write("(NASDAQ: CHML)") end if %>
500 Chapman Street
Canton, MA 02021
(617) 828-2948

UNION CITY, Ca., October 22, 1996/FOOLWIRE/ --- Chicago Miniature Lamp reported third quarter 1996 earnings late last week. Earnings per share were $0.20 versus $0.11 per share, beating analyst estimates by a penny. [Editor's note: The company just came off of an analyst road show, so the conference call was very brief because they had just updated most of the analyst community in person during the road show.]

Sales for the quarter came in at $25.1 million versus $14.6 million last year, an increase of 72% year over year. For the first nine months of 1996, sales were $66.6 million versus $39 million in the year ago period, again that is a 71% increase year over year.

Their gross margin was at 34.6% versus last year's 33.9%. They are still integrating Alba. This is the first full quarter they have had Alba in and they expect to continue to see improvement in the margins as they get online.

Net income for the quarter was $3.1 million versus $1.7 million which is an 85% increase. For the first 9 months of 1996, they had net income of $8.5 million versus $4.1 million, a 74% increase. Their earnings per share came in at $0.20 per share versus last year's $0.11 per share and they had an increase of 7% in the number of weighted average shares due to various stock options. For the nine month period, they did $0.54 per share versus $0.31 per share last year. Based on the shares used to calculate this, it represents 19%.

The company is positioned to continue with its aggressive strategy to grow into the singular lighting presence in miniature lighting worldwide. Alba (in Europe) is a mirror image of Chicago Miniature here in the states. The head of Alba has many years of tenure in the miniature lighting market in Europe. He has 24 targeted potential strategic acquisitions for them in Europe. Western Europe is more fragmented than the United States.

Chicago Miniature Lamp is looking at two types of acquisition targets in the US market -- companies with about $16 million in revenue and then other targets with between $50-100 million in revenue who are either competitors or end users of Chicago Miniature's product. The larger company they are looking at as a possible acquisition is in the $100 million range and are a customer of Chicago Miniature. The product they make, Chicago Miniature's present system is currently capable of producing that product in house.

OUTLOOK FOR Q4 AND 1997. The fourth quarter looks very strong. There are several new products contributing to it which they measure as internal growth. Of interest -- Plastimer Group in Canada is up about 45% in new shipments; in Europe, Alba is projecting about 18% growth this quarter over last quarter and looking into 1997. The overall system is averaging 15%, but in fact there are several new products that save money and several other products that have just been booked and depending on market acceptance (private label products for large retailers) they could have Chicago Miniature's internal growth come in in excess of 15% in 1997.

Plastimer's shipments are up 45% with 50% less overhead than last year, so their gross margins have more than doubled. Pre-tax margins there are running at about 23.5%. Their gross margin was at 14% when Chicago Miniature acquired them. Refocusing them into their core business away from plastic molding into automotive lamp and socket, they have dramatically improved the throughput there. It's a good example of the changes Chicago has made in their integration processes at their acquisition sites.

Chicago Miniature's smallest presence in the automotive industry is with GM. They are building a very large presence for the interior miniature lighting at Ford, Delco and Chrysler. In fact, they have been advised because of their scales, their quality, and response times that they are going to be the 2/3 majority supplier for this type of product. That is one of the goals of the company, much like in the pilot/indication for appliance market where they have such a strong presence and they influence it and can maintain and grow margins. That is also their goal in the interior of automobiles, that they are close to becoming the singular presence so they can influence their future in the interior of automobiles going forward. They are going to take the appliance indicator product into the European market through Alba.

SG&A was around 15.2%, compared to prior year of 15.3%. For the 9 months they are at 14.9%. Alba is part of their restructuring and their SG&A is included in that and they expect to see improvement on a downward basis for that going into the coming quarters. For the SG&A number to be where it is, some of the core groups that they have reorganized have SG&A percentages much lower than that. So, the acquisitions temporarily change their SG&A percentages, but they don't represent the core groups and the percentages will see-saw as they reorganize acquired companies and then as they acquire new companies that need to be reorganized.

* A Fool conference call synopsis represents an effort to highlight the salient points of a conference call and should not be taken as an authoritative accounting or transcription of the entire event. Note: Statements made by a company other than historical information may constitute forward-looking statements for which the company can claim protection under the Safe Harbor Act. Please consult the company's filings with the SEC for information on risk factors which might cause actual results to differ materially from the information contained in these forward-looking statements.