ALL-AMERICAN ANALYST

Cornelius "Perk" Thornton is a real no-nonsense professional and a man of few words. He even retains his childhood nickname "Perk" because "it's one syllable and it's catchy." It also happens to be a highly respected name throughout the financial community, here and abroad.

But when the vice president and senior research analyst addresses Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s sales force on performance prospects of companies in the packaging industry, Thornton is all details. And these folks, who directly advise investors on the best and worst picks for their money, are all ears.

Through painstaking research and analysis of industry fundamentals, Thornton may have a better perspective on a company than its corporate board. In fact, his valuable insights and predictions have landed him on Institutional Investor magazine's list of Wall Street's most outstanding brokerage analysts for 14 straight years. For the last seven years, he has ranked first in the packaging field. (The 1992 All-America Research Team appears in Institutional Investor this month.) Thornton, 50, is the only African-American analyst to have ever claimed firstteam honors.

Perhaps one of the reasons Thornton is so good at what he does is that he's been doing it for almost 20 years. A bit of a late bloomer, Thornton served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army before enrolling at age 25 as a freshman at the University of Iowa.

Envisioning a career in marketing, Thornton went on to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business where Wall Street recruiters captured his attention with their promises of prosperity. But upon graduation in 1973, Thornton had no Wall Street offers. So, the Chicago native took a job working at the Aetna Life and Casualty Insurance Co. as a common-stock analyst where he was recruited specifically to analyze the paper and packaging industries.

In 1976, he moved to the institutional equity research area at Morgan Stanley and continued to focus on the packaging industry. Four years later, Thornton joined First Boston Corp. as a senior securities analyst and vice president. Earlier this year, he joined Goldman Sachs.

Thorton says his goal is to bring timely, money-generating ideas to clients. "Therein lies Lady Luck," he explains. According to Institutional Investor, in 1989, Thornton was hailed by clients for being among the first to note signs of a shakeout in the metal-can-making industry. This enabled investors to foresee and later enjoy a stock leap at Crown Cork & Seal Co., Thornton's choice as the most likely beneficiary of the shakeout.

Although Thornton was tweaked in 1991 for his mistaken prediction that soft drink companies would agree to pay more for aluminum cans, he made up for it by continuing to stand by Crown Cork & Seal, which, once again, performed well for investors.

If Thornton makes the All-America list this year, it will be his first appearance as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Making the list is clearly important to Thornton because it marks him as on top of his game--a game where consistency is paramount to success.

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