Chrysler Back on Fortune’s Top 10 List
Chrysler returned to the Fortune 500’s top 10 today for the first time since 1978, while the group of preeminent U.S. businesses saw their total profits soar by 41% to $91 billion despite the stock market crash and fears of an economic downturn.
Fortune magazine reported that Chrysler’s August, 1987, acquisition of American Motors boosted its 1987 sales by 16.6% to $26.258 billion, enough to displace Chevron as No. 10 on the magazine’s annual ranking of the nation’s largest companies by sales.
American Motors, the last home-grown U.S. rival to Detroit’s Big Three auto makers, had ranked 113th on the 1986 list.
The 500’s sales and profits appeared to have weathered the October stock market panic with little damage.
Rust Belt Recovery
The magazine said the Rust Belt recovery evidenced by the group’s huge profit increase “may be the light at the end of the tunnel for industrial America.”
Total sales climbed 9% to $1.88 trillion, but the more impressive gain occurred in profits, which jumped by $27 billion from their 1986 level of $64 billion.
Fortune, which said 23 of 24 industry groups increased earnings last year, attributed the extraordinary gains to continued strong consumer spending in the fifth year of the economic expansion, corporate restructuring that cut payrolls by 300,000 workers to 13.1 million and the continued weakness of the dollar.
There was little rearrangement among the top 10 companies on the list.
Same Firms Head List
The same six companies--General Motors, Exxon, Ford Motor, IBM, Mobil and General Electric--led the list as last year.
Texaco moved up one position to No. 7 and was replaced by AT&T;, which fell one to No. 8. Du Pont repeated in the ninth slot, while Chrysler and Chevron changed places, ending at 10 and 11 respectively.
New to the Fortune 500 were Sun Microsystems, a 6-year-old California computer company whose sales jumped 156% and whose profits tripled (to 463 on the list); Harley-Davidson, which acquired recreational vehicle maker Holiday Rambler in 1986 (398), and Affiliated Publications, parent of the Boston Globe, which earned $201 million on $490 million in sales (486).
New York City, still the home base for more Fortune 500 companies than any other city, had 50 in 1987--three fewer than the year before. Chicago was still No. 2 with 24, but Pittsburgh, with 15, displaced Dallas, with 12, in third place.
