Forbes Magazine List : N.Y. No. 1 as Home to Biggest Private Firms
New York remains the private-company capital of the United States, with San Francisco lagging in a tie for fifth place and Los Angeles in sixth place among cities that the nation’s largest privately held companies call home, according to a ranking by Forbes magazine released today.
New York houses the headquarters of 45 of the 400 companies on Forbes’ 1985 list of the nation’s largest private companies ranked by sales. Dallas was second with 19 company headquarters, Chicago ranked third with 18, Houston was fourth with 12 and San Francisco and Philadelphia tied for fifth with 10 company headquarters.
Los Angeles, not including other Southern California cities, was home base to nine private companies. Three private firms were based in Newport Beach, while Pasadena, Riverside and La Jolla were each the headquarters of two companies on the list.
California could claim only two of the top 20 private companies--Bechtel Group, the engineering and construction firm, and Levi Strauss & Co., the apparel manufacturer that went private this year through a leveraged buy-out--both San Francisco residents. California ranked third among the states with 40 company headquarters; the state of New York scored 58, and Texas weighed in with 49 company headquarters.
The $340 billion in combined sales of the 400 largest private companies was only one-seventh of the combined sales of the 400 largest public companies, Forbes said.
But overall, 98% of all U.S. firms are private, constituting at least one-third of U.S. production, the magazine said.
Forbes acknowledged that its list of private companies is “less than definitive” because some firms refused to reveal sales or the number of employees, causing the magazine to go to “the most reliable sources available,” including filings with government agencies and interviews with dissident shareholders and competitors. Some companies did provide figures.
California’s largest privately held company, Bechtel, ranked sixth on the list of private firms, with annual sales of $8.6 billion, Forbes said. The company employs 26,000 people.
Bechtel has suffered in recent years because of the difficult U.S. power market, particularly the nuclear power market that Bechtel dominates. Its revenue has dropped from a record $14.1 billion in 1983, and the company’s permanent work force has been pruned from 44,000 in mid-1982.
Levi Strauss, No. 14 on the list, had sales of $2.5 billion and 37,000 employees. The jeans maker completed its leveraged buy-out in August. During the first nine months of the year--its last quarters as a public company--Levi Strauss reported earnings of $81 million, up 105% from the same period last year, on sales of $1.9 billion, which was unchanged from the year before.
Denny’s 1st in Southland
La Mirada-based Denny’s, which owns the Denny’s and El Pollo Loco chains, was the largest private company in Southern California. It had sales of $1.2 billion and 52,000 employees. Denny’s ranked 46th on the list.
Pasadena-based Parsons Corp., an engineering and construction firm, was the Southland’s second-largest private company. It was 75th on the Forbes list with $840 million in sales and 8,000 employees.
Parsons was taken private last January in a leveraged buy-out by the company’s employee stock ownership plan. It was the largest employee stock ownership buy-out in U.S. history.
In Los Angeles proper, 20th Century Fox Film Corp. was the largest private company, ranking third in size in Southern California and 88th on Forbes’ list. The movie studio recorded $754 million in sales and employed 3,280 people.
In September, press tycoon Rupert Murdoch agreed to pay $325 million for the 50% interest in 20th Century Fox owned by his partner, oil and film mogul Marvin Davis. Six months earlier, Murdoch had bought half of Fox for $162 million and advanced another $88 million to the money-losing studio’s parent firm, TCF Holdings.
Three weeks ago, Murdoch announced plans to restructure Fox, combining the studio with the six Metromedia television stations that he is purchasing. THE TOP 10 PRIVATE U.S. COMPANIES
Company Headquarters Business Sales 1 Denny’s La Mirada Restaurants $1.2 billion 2 Parsons Pasadena Engineering 840 million 3 20th Century Fox Los Angeles Entertainment 754 million 4 Golden State Foods Pasadena Food service 700 million 5 Alfred M. Lewis Riverside Food wholesaler 667 million 6 Fedco Los Angeles Dept. stores 600 million 7 U.S.A. Petroleum Santa Monica Gasoline retailer 500 million 8 C.L. Peck Contractor Los Angeles Construction 462 million 9 Boys Markets Highland Park Grocery stores 450 million 10 Science Applications La Jolla Research, devl. 420 million
