#9: New England Business Service, Inc.

PAST GLOBE 100 RANKING 1997: 57 1996: - 1995: 49 1994: 78 1993: - 1992: 62 1991: 19 1990: 7 1989: 10

ost casual observers find order forms and packaging materials among the more soporific of business activities.

Not New England Business Service. The Groton-based firm has turned ho-hum paper shuffling and packaging into a profitable niche by producing and marketing labels, checks, sales slips, customized order forms, and other printed matter for 1.5 million small-business customers.

The company, known as NEBS, has remade itself through acquisitions, recently purchasing units of a Colorado company that will add a 350-person sales force to bolster its catalog marketing.

''We have targeted to be a supplier of a variety of products to very small businesses,'' said Timothy D. Althof, NEBS's vice president for investor relations.

The formula is showing signs of success. Tucker Anthony analyst Steven A. Richter expects NEBS's revenues to soar to $475 million in fiscal 1999. For the calendar year figures used in Globe 100, revenues were $296 million in 1997.

Despite the revenue growth, NEBS's own paper - its stock - has not kept up. Shares in the company rose just 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 1998 after gaining nearly 57 percent in 1997.

''The goodwill amortization is hurting earnings per share,'' Richter said, referring to accounting procedures that have dampened the stock price as the company made acquisitions.

NEBS snapped up Rapidforms Inc. and Chiswick Trading last year before buying units of Lakewood, Colo.-based Romo Corp. earlier this month.

NEBS, run by Robert J. Murray, a former Gillette marketing executive, has customers scattered across the United States, Canada, Britain, and France.

''The different businesses are offering an opportunity to cross-market our products,'' Althof said. ''We're doing more marketing than before.''