Methanex sticks to its knitting. (Methanex Corp.'s management strategies)

Methanex was created just six years ago by the breakup of Ocelot Industries (Calgary, AB), a conglomerate with too many different businesses and too much debt (box). Those demons have since been banished, but management remains obsessive about focused, low-cost operations and a squeaky-clean balance sheet.

The results show in a company that is generally admired, occasionally resented, and always speculated about. The top two questions are what it will do with its cash hoard, $413 million as of first-quarter 1997, and when it will diversify. Pierre Choquette, who became president in December 1994, hears the questions often but says he is more amused by them than irritated, …