Fortune 500 list of companies – Interesting points

Top Interesting findings – America’s 2019 Fortune 500

I was going though the double issue (June/July 2020) of Fortune magazine (www.fortune.com). Thought of sharing few interesting findings which caught my attention w.r.t. the 2019 ranking (pre COVID era) of America’s biggest companies –

1. Rankings 2019 Revenues – Top 10.
   1. All top 10 companies in 2018 were still in the top 10 in 2019 with few changes.
   2. Walmart ($524 billion revenues) retained it’s number #1 coveted spot for the 8th straight year.
   3. Amazon ($281 billion revenues) reached number #2 in the list by surpassing Exxon Mobil ($265 billion revenues) and Apple ($260 billion). Exxon Mobil and Apple slid down by one to #3 and #4 spot.
   4. CVS Health (as Amazon) also jumped three slots to acquire the #5 position as against #8 ranking in 2018.
   5. Berkshire Hathaway slid 2 slots from #4 in 2018 to #6 in 2019.  Similarly, Unitedhealth and Mckesson also slid 1 slot to #7 and #8 in 2019.
   6. AT&T and Amerisource Bergen retained their #9 and #10 slots.

2. Rankings 2019 Profits
   1. The top 10 in this category showed a different picture.
      1. The top 3 organizations in revenues were way below in the  profitability list. Walmart had $15 billion, Amazon had $12 billion, Exon Mobil $14 billion profits.
   2. Berkshire Hathaway ($81 billion) was at #1 spot. Thanks to the new accounting rule which forced it to count $54 billion in gains from stock holdings as net income.
   3. Apple at $55 billion, JP Morgan Chase at $36 billion, Microsoft $ 39 billion, Alphabet $34 billion, Bank of America $27 billion, Intel $21 billion, Verizon $19 bullion, Facebook at $19 billion in profits are some other noteworthy mentions.

3. Ranking of Metropolis by the cumulative revenues of the Fortune 500 based there.
   1. NY at #1 spot was an easy guess. With $1.78 Trillion combined revenues it is way ahead and is approx the size of #2 and #3 combined.
   2. Dallas ($996 billion), Chicago ($842 billion), Sand Jose ($811 billion), Seattle ($670 billion) occupy the #2 to #5 slots.
   3. The next #6 to #15 spots are occupied by Bentonville metro area, Minneapolis, SFO, Washington DC, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Providence.

4. Ranking Industry wise
   1. A total of 91 financial companies made it to the list and the 20 commercial banks combined for $163 billion in profits.
   2. Energy with 60, Retailing with 48, Technology with 44 and Healthcare at 40 were the #2 to #5 industries.
   3. 10 years back – financial companies were only 71. So an addition of 20 companies.

5. Ranking – Top Money Losers
   1. Uber topped the list with $8.5 billions in loss. Followed by PG&E at $7.7 billion, National Oilwell Varco $6.1 billion, Frontier communications $5.9 billion, CenturyLink $5.3 billion, General Electric $5 billion.
   2. Mosaic with $1.1 billion loss was #18th. So total 18 companies listed in $1 billion+ loss.
   3. Realogy Holdings with $188 million in losses was at the $50th spot.

6. Ranking on Market Capitalization – Three $ Trillion+ impact
   1. Microsoft at $1.4 Trillion, Apple at $1.3 Trillion, Amazon at $1.2 Trillion top the charts.

7. Points/Questions for 2020 with COVID-19 Pandemic
   1. April 2020, Coca Cola CEO James said “ Given the great uncertainty of the current environment, we feel it’s prudent to hold off provide fiscal year 2020 guidelines.” More than 100 companies in the S&P 500 that provided regular guidance (including IBM, Intel, Kimberly Clark)  have said that they wont attempt to forecast results for 2020. This is extremely unusual.
   2. The company which will thrive during these Pandemic times is predicted to be Amazon. To quote from the Fortune magazine, “if you were designing a company from scratch that could capitalize on a global crisis, it would probably look a lot like Amazon.”
   3. The Wall Street may be up for a BIG disappointment. The fourth quarter of 2019, operating margins were at 11.4% (which was almost three points higher than the median of the past decade). Even if organizations were to cross 9% operating margin in 2020, it will be take humungous effort.

(PS- I hv rounded off the revenue/ profit numbers as appropriate).