THE TIMES 100 : THE BEST PERFORMING COMPANIES IN CALIFORNIA : THE GIANTS : Giants Hide Behind a Variety of Masks : Biggest Companies Are Content to Prosper Anonymously

Go ahead. Just try to buy something from Occidental Petroleum.

Oxy--No. 2 on The Times’ list of California’s biggest companies in terms of sales--sells hardly anything a California consumer can buy.

If you want the oil that Occidental Petroleum pumps out of the ground, try a Chevron station--Oxy’s oil helps Chevron maintain its perpetual No. 1 sales ranking. If you want the plastics that its Occidental Chemical subsidiary processes, buy Samsonite luggage--Oxy makes the vinyl film that coats the bags.

About the closest you can come to an Occidental product is to wander into the grocery store and search hard in the meat section for the ground beef chubs and boneless pork products that bear the label of IBP, Oxy’s cattle- and hog-slaughtering company. Or you could go to Mexico and buy Con-Tact paper; Occidental Chemical makes and distributes the stuff as a licensee in Latin America.

The point here is that being a sales leader does not make a company a household name. Many companies ranked in the Sales 100 are holding companies, wholesalers, financial service firms or conglomerates with profiles as low as their revenues are high. Their names do not hint at the products or services they sell, even when the companies embedded in their corporate structures bear well-known names themselves.

Consider, for instance, Castle & Cooke (No. 41). Messrs. Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke certainly were important figures in the history of Hawaii and the development of American agribusiness. But it’s the Los Angeles-based company’s Dole-brand products--pineapples, bananas, Popsicles and more--that supply 92% of Castle & Cooke’s revenue and just about all of its name recognition.

Still, Castle & Cooke is in other businesses, primarily real estate development. So it may not make sense for it to adopt the Dole name company-wide, said Robert S. Kahn, executive director in Beverly Hills for Landor Associates, a corporate identity consulting firm. And in any event, the company’s name hasn’t changed in 138 years.

But answer this: What is a First American Financial Corp. (No. 92), and how does it differ from a First Capital Holdings Corp. (No. 86)?

First American Financial, based in Santa Ana, is the nation’s second-biggest seller of title insurance, the policies that guarantee that property owners genuinely hold exclusive rights to the real estate they’re buying.

To those whose business is real estate, the firm’s name is familiar--especially in Southern California, where First American has 100-year-old roots. In a national expansion drive now in its fourth decade, however, the firm often has held on to the names of the local title companies it has acquired, from Peoples Abstract Co. in Iowa to Mt. Shasta Title & Escrow Co. in Northern California.

First Capital Holdings in Century City (not to be confused, say, with First Capitalcorp in Beverly Hills, as one reporter did) is the holding company for a group of insurance and mutual fund companies that had $735.5 million in revenue last year.

But it is barely a blip on the consciousness of the investing public. It sells mutual funds and annuities under the Pilgrim Group name, and its insurance products under a variety of brand names. Its best known unit--the former E. F. Hutton Life Insurance Co, one of the originators of universal life policies--actually lost its identity upon its acquisition by First Capital in 1987, becoming First Capital Life Insurance Co.

“We’re sort of the ghost company of Los Angeles,” First Capital spokeswoman Mischelle Martin acknowledged.

Uninformative names are not uncommon in the financial services industry. Many companies adopt broad umbrella titles fitting with their holding company structures, though Kahn, for one, argues against it.

“The common wisdom would say: ‘Communicate to people who you are and what you do’, “ he said. “The financial service industry is one of the best examples of common, shared naming elements,” he added, citing “First,” “Western” and “Federal” as especially overused appellations.

Consumer product companies often choose not to let a lesser known corporate name get in the way of famous brand names, added Glenn Monigle, a corporate identification consultant in Denver.

For every Beatrice Co.--the consumer products giant that added its name and logo to the marketing of such well-known brands as Playtex gloves, Hunt’s tomato sauce, Wesson oil and Swift meats--there are numerous companies, such as RJR Nabisco, that let their popular brands maintain an independent image in the public mind.

Among the latter are some giant California companies that own well-known names but have been content to lay low and let their products be the stars. Ask average consumers what San Francisco’s McKesson Corp. (No. 12) sells, and they might answer dairy products, thinking back to the days before 1983, when the company was known as Foremost-McKesson and owned Foremost Dairies.

In fact, McKesson is the nation’s biggest distributor of drugs and health and beauty aids--largely through its marketing cooperative, Valu-Rite drugstores. Its Sparkletts unit is part of America’s biggest bottled water operation, and its Armor All Products subsidiary in Irvine dominates the market for car-appearance products.

McKesson sells house-brand products, but under the “Valu-Rite” name at Valu-Rite, and as “Medalist” at independent pharmacies. “It just generally has been the culture of the company not to have McKesson-branded products, because they would be in direct competition with our suppliers’,” explained spokesman James S. Cohune.

For a few California sales leaders, a name picked out of the blue is as good as any other, if for no other reason than that the composition of the company is in constant flux.

A case in point is the Henley Group (No. 73), in La Jolla. It was formed in 1985 from units cast off in the merger of Allied Corp. and Signal Cos. But after some divestments last year, what was left of the original Henley (named for the famed English regatta) became Wheelabrator Group. A new entity called Henley Group was established to own majority shares of two Henley spinoffs and other large stock holdings.

Then there are the giants whose names are word games. Drug maker Syntex Corp. (No. 58) is part “Synt-,” a reference to the synthesized hormones that were its first products, and part “-ex,” derived from Mexico, where the company got its start. Adia Services (No. 100) is 70% owned by a Swiss company that is a world giant in temporary employment; its name is an acronym for the Swiss-German phrase that means, “outside help for business, commerce and industry.”

And then, of course, there’s Oakland-based Clorox Co. (No. 61). Guess what it sells.

THE SALES 100

Companies ranked by net revenue.

1988 ’87 sales % chg. Rank Rank Company ($ millions) from ’87 1 1 Chevron Corp. 25,196.0 -3 2 2 Occidental Petroleum 19,417.0 14 3 3 Atlantic Richfield Co. 17,626.0 8 4 Rockwell Intl. 11,946.3 -1 5 4 Lockheed Corp. 10,590.0 -6 6 5 BankAmerica Corp. 10,181.0 0 7 8 Hewlett-Packard Co. 9,831.0 22 8 7 Pacific Telesis Group 9,483.0 4 9 6 Unocal Corp. 8,853.0 5 10 9 Security Pacific 8,483.1 11 11 11 Transamerica Corp. 7,879.0 10 12 10 Pacific Gas&Elec.;** 7,645.7 6 13 12 McKesson Corp.* 6,850.4 -6 14 15 SCEcorp** 6,252.7 12 15 16 Pacific Enterprises 5,979.0 12 16 17 First Interstate 5,932.1 17 17 14 Northrop Corp. 5,797.1 -4 18 22 Fluor Corp. 5,132.5 31 19 19 Litton Industries Inc. 4,863.9 10 20 18 Wells Fargo & Co. 4,853.0 6 21 29 Teledyne Inc. 4,522.7 41 22 27 Price Co. 4,140.5 25 23 36 Apple Computer Inc. 4,071.4 53 24 25 Wickes Cos.* 3,984.6 15 25 28 Vons Cos.** 3,916.6 20 26 21 Firemans Fund Corp. 3,703.7 -6 27 37 H.F. Ahmanson** 3,516.8 33 28 26 Bergen Brunswig 3,486.4 3 29 33 Walt Disney Co. 3,438.2 20 30 31 National Medical* 3,432.8 7 31 30 Times Mirror Co. 3,259.4 6 32 20 Great West. Financial 3,165.5 -20 33 35 American Medical 3,111.5 15 34 24 First Executive Corp. 3,048.7 -12 35 38 MCA Inc. 3,023.7 17 36 46 Intel Corp. 2,874.8 51 37 39 Calfed Inc. 2,815.6 13 38 40 Consolid. Freight 2,689.1 17 39 41 Natl. Semiconductor* 2,666.8 8 40 34 Carter Hawley Hale** 2,617.1 -9 41 52 Castle & Cooke Inc. 2,469.2 41 42 45 Glenfed Inc. 2,384.8 20 43 48 American President 2,131.2 17 44 47 San Diego Gas 2,076.1 9 45 53 Kaufman&Brd.; Inc.** 2,050.3 35 46 43 Beverly Enterprises 2,025.0 -3 47 51 Longs Drug Stores* 1,872.6 6 48 54 Amdahl Corp. 1,801.8 20 49 56 Great Am. 1st Savings 1,601.5 13 50 55 Avery International 1,582.0 8 51 57 Fleetwood Enterp.* 1,562.0 11 52 58 HomeFed Corp. 1,517.2 20 53 59 Golden West Financial 1,410.3 11 54 60 Gibraltar Financial** 1,398.9 31 55 61 Tiger International 1,357.5 10 56 72 Tandem Computers 1,314.7 27 57 62 Columbia S&L; 1,301.6 3 58 66 Syntex Corp. 1,271.5 13 59 78 Seagate Technology 1,266.0 32 60 68 Rykoff-Sexton Inc.* 1,260.8 10 61 67 Clorox Co. 1,259.9 12 62 64 Computer Sciences 1,253.4 9 63 70 Gap Inc. 1,252.1 18 64 76 Varian Associates Inc. 1,170.6 19 65 69 Imperial Corp. 1,161.4 8 66 63 Tosco Corp. 1,142.5 -4 67 74 Advanced Micro 1,125.9 13 68 71 Coast Savings 1,110.3 5 69 81 Raychem Corp. 1,094.7 16 70 75 Potlatch Corp. 1,084.1 9 71 Sun Microsystems Inc. 1,051.6 96 72 80 Di Giorgio Corp. 1,045.5 10 73 23 Henley Group Inc.** 1,036.0 9 74 73 Mattel Inc. 990.0 -3 75 82 Fisher Scientific 957.7 5 76 77 Guy F. Atkinson Co. 920.0 -5 77 84 Hilton Hotels Corp. 915.4 12 78 87 Rohr Industries 906.8 37 79 86 Kauf. & Broad Home** 903.4 34 80 92 Businessland Inc. 871.6 45 81 85 Caesars World 833.0 7 82 95 Union Bank 787.4 34 83 Beckman Instruments 770.3 11 84 Western Digital Corp. 768.3 66 85 Jacobs Engineering 757.4 136 86 First Capital Holdings 735.5 65 87 99 Intermark Inc.* 714.2 25 88 MGM/UA Commun. 674.9 58 89 91 Calmat Co. 660.8 10 90 Petrolane Partners** 642.5 7 91 96 Ross Stores Inc. 634.2 10 92 First Amer. Financial 631.4 1 93 98 Shaklee Corp. 627.5 10 94 20th Century Ind. 622.1 22 95 89 Cooper Cos. 611.3 -3 96 Amer. Bldg. Maint. 581.7 10 97 94 Collins Foods Intl.* 530.6 -6 98 Maxxam Inc. 519.2 1,399 99 Zenith National Ins. 508.7 8 100 Adia Services Inc. 504.4 29

*See exceptions, page 38.

**See company notes, page 29.

BIGGEST INDUSTRIALS

Companies ranked by total revenue.

1988 revenue % change Rank Company ($ millions) from 1987 1 Chevron Corp. 25,196.0 -3 2 Occidental Petroleum Corp. 19,417.0 14 3 Atlantic Richfield Co. 17,626.0 8 4 Rockwell International Corp. 11,946.3 -1 5 Lockheed Corp. 10,590.0 -6 6 Hewlett-Packard Co. 9,831.0 22 7 Unocal Corp. 8,853.0 5 8 Northrop Corp. 5,797.1 -4 9 Fluor Corp. 5,132.5 31 10 Litton Industries Inc. 4,863.9 10 11 Teledyne Inc. 4,522.7 41 12 Apple Computer Inc. 4,071.4 53 13 Wickes Cos.* 3,984.6 15 14 Walt Disney Co. 3,438.2 20 15 Times Mirror Co. 3,259.4 6

*See exceptions, page 38.

BIGGEST SERVICE COMPANIES

Companies ranked by total revenue.

1988 revenue % change Rank Company ($ millions) from 1987 1 Pacific Telesis Group 9,483.0 4 2 Transamerica Corp. 7,879.0 10 3 Pacific Gas & Electric** 7,645.7 6 4 McKesson Corp.* 6,850.4 -6 5 SCEcorp** 6,252.7 12 6 Pacific Enterprises 5,979.0 12 7 Price Co. 4,140.5 25 8 Vons Cos.** 3,916.6 20 9 Firemans Fund Corp. 3,703.7 -6 10 Bergen Brunswig Corp. 3,486.4 3 11 National Medical Enterprises* 3,432.8 7 12 American Medical International 3,111.5 15 13 First Executive Corp. 3,048.7 -12 14 Consolidated Freightways Inc. 2,689.1 17 15 Carter Hawley Hale Stores** 2,617.1 -9

*See exceptions, page 38.

**See company notes, page 29.

BIGGEST BANKS AND S&LS;

Institutions ranked by assets.

1988 assets % change Rank Company ($ billions) from 1987 1 BankAmerica 94.647 2 2 Security Pacific 77.870 7 3 First Interstate Bancorp 58.194 14 4 Wells Fargo & Co. 46.617 6 5 H.F. Ahmanson & Co.** 40.258 32 6 Great Western Financial 32.815 15 7 CalFed 27.482 12 8 Glenfed 23.711 25 9 HomeFed 17.009 21 10 Golden West Financial 16.721 30 11 Great Am. First Savings Bank 16.084 6 12 Gibraltar Financial** 15.011 0 13 Union Bank 15.010 148 14 Columbia Savings & Loan 12.744 14 15 Coast Savings & Loan 12.647 6

**See company notes, page 29.