CEO: Pall Corp. stepping up patent activity

Filtration and purification company Pall Corp., of Port Washington, has filed more patents in the last two years than in the prior 12, a development that the company's CEO said Tuesday will help fuel growth.

Speaking to investors at the Robert W. Baird Industrial Conference in Chicago, chairman and chief executive Larry Kingsley said research and development results in incremental advances.

"We don't live in a killer app kind of world," he said. Still, he added advances in one market often can be applied to another. For instance, technology developed for microelectronics could aid life sciences.

"There's a nice degree of technology leverage," Kingsley said.

Pall's sales are split between the fast-growing life sciences market ($1.5 billion in fiscal 2014) and the slower growing industrial business ($1.3 billion).

Kingsley said the "quiet period" before Pall releases earnings prevented him from updating the company's financial forecast, but he said management feels "good about the outlook" despite concerns about "a damp economic environment" in some global markets.

"Execution is becoming part of the DNA of the company," he said.

Kingsley was named CEO of Pall in August 2011 after serving as chief executive of IDEX Corp., a Lake Forest, Illinois, maker of pumps and fluid metering systems.

Shares of Pall fell 0.46 percent Tuesday to close at $93.84, but have risen almost 15 percent over the past 12 months. On Monday, the company paid a quarterly dividend of 3 cents per share, an 11 percent increase from the prior payout.

Pharmaceutical and related companies account for 63 percent of Pall's sales within the life sciences unit, while fuel, chemical, power generation and water processing companies make up 43 percent of industrial sales, the largest single segment.

Kingsley said Pall "de-emphasized municipal water" processing, while "doubling down" on higher growth markets.

The company, founded six decades ago by scientist and inventor David Pall, is among the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of filters that purify substances ranging from water to gasoline.

By Ken Schachter

kenneth.schachter@newsday.comkschach

Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.