Black-Owned Firms Make Revenue Gains

The nation’s largest black-owned businesses posted 1990 revenue of $7.2 billion, a 5.2% increase over the year before despite the “vise-like grip of a tight economy and a wavering national commitment to minority business development,” Black Enterprise Magazine said Tuesday.

The magazine, which annually ranks the top 100 industrial and service companies that are at least 51% black-owned, conceded that despite the gains in revenue, black businesses last year “took some tough blows.”

Employment fell 4.5% to 37,778 people, and 46 companies appearing the previous year failed to make the 1990 list. Among black-owned companies that supply automotive parts, sales declined a cumulative $39 million.

Still, chief executives “reacted to the recession, the retrenchment of government set-aside programs and diminished private procurement opportunities by showing just how good, smart--and tough--they could be when the chips were down,” said Earl G. Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine.

TLC Beatrice International Holdings Co., a food processor and distributor, remained No. 1 for the fourth year among industrial and services companies. Its gross sales totaled $1.5 billion last year, far outpacing the average sales for Black Enterprise 100 companies of $35.84 million. No. 2 on the list was Johnson Publishing Co. of Chicago, with revenue of $252.2 million, followed by Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co., $251.3 million; H.J. Russell & Co., an Atlanta-based construction and development concern, $143.3 million, and Soft Sheen Products, a maker of hair-care products in Chicago, with revenue of $92.1 million.