Selim Bassoul, Chairman and CEO of The Middleby Corporation, Inducted into the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.

CHICAGO -- Selim Bassoul, Chairman and Chief Executive of The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) has been inducted into the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

Since being named CEO of The Middleby Corporation in 2000, Selim Bassoul has quadrupled sales and grown margins significantly. He refocused the business on new technologies, including bringing more speed, automation and energy savings to Middleby customers. He made the Middleby brands an global name as he aggressively expanded in China, India, Spain, Mexico and the United Kingdom among many other countries. In 2005, the company's stellar performance landed it in the #10 spot of Forbes' Best Small Companies and #28 in Fortune Magazine's Fastest Growing Companies.

Selim is proud of the company's exceptionally high employee retention rate, which he credits to company culture. He has an "open door" policy to all employees any very few layers of management. High on the list for Selim is being a socially responsible citizen. He has lead company-wide hurricane relief efforts not only for Katrina in 2005, but for other post-storm assistance near the company's North Carolina facility. He supports university scholarship efforts and has lead community projects around the world in countries such as Israel, Lebanon and Turkey.

"The members of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame represent those with the courage to chart their own course and by doing that inject vitality, optimism, and creativity into the business climate," said Dr. Gerry E. Hills, Executive Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and Coleman Professor of Entrepreneurship at the UIC College of Business Administration.

The Middleby Corporation is a global leader in the foodservice equipment industry. The company develops, manufactures, markets and services a broad line of equipment used for cooking and food preparation in commercial and institutional kitchens and restaurants throughout the world. The company's leading equipment brands include Alkar(R), Blodgett(R), Blodgett Combi(R), Blodgett Range(R), CTX(R), MagiKitch'n(R), Middleby Marshall(R), Nu-Vu(R), Pitco Frialator(R), RapidPak(R), Southbend(R), and Toastmaster(R). Middleby's international subsidiary, Middleby Worldwide, is a leading exporter and distributor of foodservice equipment in the global marketplace. Middleby's international manufacturing subsidiary, Middleby Philippines Corporation, is a leading supplier of specialty equipment in the Asian markets. For further information about Middleby, visit www.middleby.com.