On business: New Entegris CEO admires Bud Grant's leadership style

Gideon Argov will become CEO of Entegris Inc. when its merger with his Boston-based Mykrolis Corp. closes today in a stock deal that will create a company boasting nearly 3,000 employees from Chaska to China.

The companies, which provide equipment and services that are needed to make high-tech computer chips, will have a combined market value of about $1.3 billion and should approach $700 million in sales in their first full year of consolidated operations.

Argov, 48, is an understated CEO with an international pedigree who, in a nod to the Twin Cities locals, says retired Vikings football coach Bud Grant is one of his idols. Why? Because Grant was known for being low on showmanship and high on preparation and solid results.

Argov will spend part of his time at the Chaska headquarters but will continue to live in Boston with his wife, an executive with the Boston Symphony Orchestra who also is a professional musician. He has three teenage sons in Boston, as well, from a previous marriage.

"The myth about CEOs is that they control anything at all," said Argov, who has run two smaller companies, worked as a venture capitalist and, as a young man, rose from a conscript to a tank commander in the Israeli Defense Forces 30 years ago.

"Do I have any idea what somebody in some facility or down the hall is doing? What I need to do is set a tone, get the best people in the best spots, create a vision and the excitement and spend a lot of time hammering home our vision, our strategy, and deliver for our customers and investors.

"Bud Grant ... is a very humble guy, like Bill Belichick of the Patriots. I admire that. They prepared extensively and very well, no matter who the opponent. They are not [showy] guys.

"We've been spending an enormous amount of time preparing over the last months," he said.

Argov added, "We have melded the corporate values into a set of values for both companies. Our statement of operating principles is a three-page document that is an owner's manual for the company. It's going to go up alongside our mission statement, translated into every language of every country in which we operate. They're going up around the world on Monday. We have a great team of people. And I'm as excited as all get-out."

Investors have bid up the stocks of the two companies by about 20 percent since the deal was announced in March.

The services and products that Entegris and Mykrolis offer purify, protect and transport sensitive material used in manufacturing the electronic brains inside computers, TVs, cell phones, iPods, fuel-cell assemblies and lots of other next-generation electronics. Customers include Intel, Motorola, IBM and Samsung.

The merger seeks to cut only about $15 million in administrative costs annually, or less than 5 percent. Argov believes the company can grow at 120 percent of the pace of the overall industry, or up to 10 percent annually, by offering a broader portfolio of products to the consolidating semiconductor and other industries that Entegris serves.

"Our belief is that one plus one will equal more than two," he said.

Argov, now a U.S. citizen, was raised in Africa, Europe and the United States.

He is the son of the late Israeli diplomat, Shlomo Argov, who was Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1982 when he was shot and critically wounded by a Palestinian assassin on a London street. The senior Argov, then 50, remained permanently incapacitated in a Jerusalem hospital until his death in 2003.

Gideon Argov, who once patrolled Israel's border with Egypt and Syria in a tank column, left the army after four years in 1978 to pursue an economics degree at Harvard and an MBA at Stanford.

He joined Mykrolis last fall as the successor to the retiring CEO, William Zadel. Before that, Argov was managing director of Parthenon Capital, a Boston-based private equity partnership. And for 10 years before that he was CEO of high-tech manufacturer Kollmorgen Corp.

Hot stocks

CNS of Eden Prairie, the maker of Breathe Right strips and chewable, flavored fiber supplements, is hands-down Minnesota's best-performing stock of the year. Buoyant CNS reported a 142 percent jump in fiscal 2006 first-quarter earnings and a 42 percent revenue increase from the comparable 2005 quarter. The stock rose 15 percent to $28.03 Thursday in heavy trading.

Five years ago, CEO Marti Morfitt & Co. were struggling with a $5 stock and shareholders' cries to sell out to a larger company.

Mosaic, one of Minnesota's largest and newest public companies, last week posted pro-forma net earnings of $111.7 million for the fiscal year that ended May 31 on net sales of $5.5 billion, double-digit increases for a company that was formed last fall from the merger of Cargill's fertilizer business into publicly held IMC Global. The headquarters has been moved from Illinois to Plymouth.

Chief Executive Fritz Corrigan, a former Cargill executive, and his team are briefing new and prospective investors on the interesting prospects of this global agricultural nutrients player.

The stock, which has been rising lately, hasn't been nearly as hot as some others. But a Mosaic investor presentation Wednesday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Minneapolis was fiery. Literally.

The little flame keeping some cheese dip warm in the back of the room managed to ignite a tablecloth, which provided some momentary sparks and excitement until Matt Sullivan, a quick-thinking fellow who works for communications firm Padilla Speer Beardsley, doused it with bottled water.

Corrigan & Co. led a well-deserved round of applause for Sullivan, just as a Radisson employee showed up moments later with a fire extinguisher.

Neal St. Anthony can be reached at 612-673-7144 or nstanthony@startribune.com.