CEO’s Profit Nothing to Sneeze At : Executives: Scott Paper’s Alfred J. Dunlap may gain up to $100 million in the $6.8-billion deal.

PHILADELPHIA — Scott Paper Co.’s chairman and chief executive, Alfred J. Dunlap, stands to pocket up to $100 million from selling the company to Kimberly-Clark in a $6.8-billion deal announced Monday.

But he says he’s the “biggest bargain in corporate America.”

Dunlap said Scott’s shareholder value has increased by $4.5 billion since he took over in April, 1994, and began a series of deep cost-cutting moves at the paper maker.

“My entire focus from the first day I joined Scott has been . . . to significantly increase shareholder value,” said Dunlap, who said he will take home $90 million to $100 million for selling his shares to Kimberly-Clark as part of the $6.8-billion deal.

Dunlap, known for his prowess in carving up and discarding unprofitable parts of companies, was brought into Scott Paper after the company began suffering losses.

Until the deal’s completion, expected later this year, Dunlap will continue to run Scott from Boca Raton, Fla. Dunlap moved the corporate headquarters there from Philadelphia as part of his streamlining efforts.

“Following that I will be free to move on to another corporation,” said Dunlap, who has also agreed to be an adviser to Kimberly-Clark and not to compete with it in the tissues business for five years.

“I think we’re all curious as to where Al will go next,” said Wayne R. Sanders, Kimberly-Clark’s chairman and chief executive.

Dunlap, 57, came to Scott after serving as a top aide to Sir James Goldsmith during some of the top takeover battles of the 1980s and to Australian media magnate Kerry Packer.

The West Point graduate and former paratrooper arrived three months after Scott announced it would trim 8,300 employees over two to three years in its 33,000-employee work force. One of his first major moves was to increase the reduction to 10,500 employees by the end of 1994.

He quickly moved to sell off the S.D. Warren Co. coated paper subsidiary and timberland in Georgia.

If an investor bought 1,000 shares of Scott stock on April 19, the day Dunlap was hired, the $37,750 investment would now be worth $94,500, excluding dividends. In April, the maker of Cottonelle toilet tissue, Scotties facial tissue and Viva paper towels implemented a 2-for-1 stock split.

“This man is an animal, but he seems to know how to make share prices go up,” said Mike Mullaney, a fund manager at Threadneedle Investment Management, which holds Scott shares. Mullaney declined to specify the value of the investment.

Analysts and investors have suspected that Dunlap was brought in to groom the company for sale. The man who started his career as a management trainee at Kimberly-Clark in 1963 has done just that at other companies, earning the sobriquet “Rambo in Pinstripes.”

“The reason to be in business is to make money for your shareholders,” he said earlier this year. “If you want a social experiment, join the Rotary Club.”

Not everyone is happy with Dunlap’s actions.

“He’s liquidated assets and jobs and maybe made shareholders a few bucks over the short term,” said Ed Durkin, director of special programs for the $15.5-billion United Brotherhood of Carpenters pension funds, a Scott paper holder. For long-term holders, “it’s disappointing,” he said.

Still, most shareholders are bound to be pleased by Scott’s performance. The shares have climbed 149% since Dunlap was named CEO, compared to 41% for the Standard & Poor’s paper and forest products index.

If his Scott stock options and stock holdings are valued at Monday morning’s trading price of $48.20 a share, Dunlap will receive at least $54 million in Kimberly-Clark shares.

With a termination bonus and salary payments due to Dunlap if he is forced to leave the company, Dunlap will receive at least $60 million, according to agreements outlined in the company’s proxy statement.

That’s on top of a personal fortune estimated in media reports at somewhere between $50 million and $100 million.