Keeping stride with telecommunications: Ault Inc. takes center stage in our first spotlight on Black publicly traded firms.

Over half a dozen indexes measure and report stock market movements. Responding to a number of our readers, BLACK ENTERPRISE has created its own quarterly index and insider report on black publicly traded companies.

The first company to he highlighted in this new column is Ault Inc. (Nasdaq: AULT). Based in Minneapolis, it designs, manufactures and markets external Dower conversion products for data and telecommunications equipment and related peripherals.

In the '60s, people in the inner cities rallied to the cry of "Black Power," but in the back streets of corporate business, Joseph Ault started his own power base, Ault Inc., beginning in 1960. Ault is now deceased but the company lives on. Recently, it posted a 52week high of $16.

At that time, "there was a lot of relationship and infrastructure building," says Frederick Green, currently president and CEO. Indeed, selling the company's power devices to such original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as Western Electric, IBM, Texas Instruments and Teledyne put Ault in a position to make an initial public offering in 1983.

Ault's profits and growth potential attracted an underwriting syndicate of 50 firms led by Dain Bosworth. At that time, Green recalls, Ault had a power conversion device that it was readying for a brand new industry, the up-and-coming "microcomputer" business. "Going into the IPO we'd signed a contract with IBM to provide the power supplies for their newest product-the IBM PC Jr.," he explains. "That contract was supposed to boost our bottom line fourfold by the end of the year."

The IBM PC Jr. stayed on the market for about a year, before IBM scrapped the project in the face of competition from the Macintosh. IBM terminated its relationship with Ault on the project.

"Instead of quadrupling our revenue, our next financial report was halved," recalls Green. Shortly after the IBM debacle, analysts at underwriting firms ceased to cover the company, adds Chief Financial Officer Carlos S. Montague.

As a listed company that no one considered worthy enough to analyze, Ault could have folded. Instead, as Montague notes, "We shifted the focus of our product development to data and telecommunications markets, and increased our client base to include Europe and the U.S."

The shift provided the company with enhanced opportunities. It began selling point-of-sales equipment, telephones, modems, local area network systems and cable communication services to OEMs. The company also focused more on design engineering and subcontracting arrangements.

Despite the positive outlook of Ault's latest financials (see chart), the company is not out of the woods yet. In May, institutional investor Norwest Growth Fund sold its 16% holdings. Director James Duddleston sold 14,000 shares, and four other officers sold more than 46,000 shares in order to cover option grants.