Fortune 500 Worst Year.
The Fortune 500 posted its worst year ever last year. {Excerpt & link via CBS News.)
It was 1955, the year Disneyland opened and Ray Kroc sold his first hamburger. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born that year. And it was in 1955 that Fortune magazine published the very first Fortune 500 list. It's an annual compilation of America's 500 largest companies, its changing roster reflecting the current economic climate.....Since 1955, more than 2,000 companies have earned a spot on the list, but in 55 years only three have achieved the number one slot: General Motors, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart.....
......2008 was the worst year in the history of the Fortune 500 for America's largest companies. {Some low lights!}
-From $645 billion in profits in 2007, profits dropped this year to just $98.9 billion - an 84.7 percent decline!
-Eleven of the top 25 largest corporate losses in list history took place last year.
-The biggest loser of them all: Insurance giant AIG.
-Thirty-eight companies disappeared from the list altogether. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers may be no surprise, but it was also "last call" for brewer Anheuser Busch. And the bubble burst for gum maker William Wrigley Jr. … Making room for fashionable newcomers like Polo Ralph Lauren. And (perhaps a sign of our need for retail therapy) Visa and Mastercard are also Fortune first-timers.
-Speaking of life at the top, 15 women ran Fortune 500 companies in 2008m an all-time high.
posted by CR English at 6:51 AM
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