THE TIMES 100 : THE GIANTS : Heavyweights Weather the Financial Storm
A funny thing happened on the way to year-end 1992: In the midst of a puny national recovery and a pesky regional recession, some of California’s largest companies managed to rack up healthy sales increases.
That’s quite a different story from the 1991 experience.
The recession dug into the state’s economy that year with both hands, producing a rare display of weakness for the state’s largest publicly held companies. Sales in 1991 fell 4% to just under $371 billion.
The numbers for 1992 tell a surprising tale: The patient was not cured last year, but it did perk up a bit. In general, the boost came primarily from the slow-moving national economic recovery rather than the malingering economies of Southern California and the state as a whole.
“The fact that these companies are the largest means they’re selling not only in California but outside the state as well,” said Lynn Reaser, chief economist of First Interstate Bank.
But beyond that, Reaser stressed, the state’s economy actually did improve last year, even though unemployment remained high and certain segments of the economy, including aerospace and real estate, encountered well-publicized troubles. In California, personal income and productivity scored modest gains and overall corporate profit margins increased.
“Sales and profits are turning the corner significantly before job opportunities,” Reaser said. “But higher profits are an important part of the groundwork for improving job opportunities.”
Among the companies on The Times Sales 100 list--a roster of the largest publicly held corporations in California in terms of 1992 revenue--74 posted sales increases compared to 1991, according to data compiled by STAR Services, a San Francisco-based business research firm. A total of 22 reported that sales fell, and four were unchanged from the year before.
To be sure, 19 of those companies with revenue improvements tallied increases that would not set bells ringing. All of those were jumps of 5% or less.
But 1992’s biggest increases were bigger than in 1991--110% for a fast-growing health care company called TakeCare Inc. and 106% for Countrywide Credit Industries. And the biggest sales decreases were smaller--a 33% drop for Glenfed Inc. and a 28% slump for Coast Federal Savings & Loan Assn., both ailing thrifts.
In all, The Times Sales 100 companies sold $378.4 billion in goods and services. That represents an increase of about 2% from 1991. By comparison, the companies of the Fortune 500 managed a 4.4% sales increase in 1992, reflecting the improving national economy.
The sales winners of 1992 were a grab bag of individual stories.
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Some bought their sales increases: Mergers swelled the revenue of BankAmerica Corp. (up 24% thanks to its Security Pacific purchase) and TakeCare Inc., among others.
High-tech companies climbed the list, as did health care operations. Savings and loans, housing and aerospace firms tumbled down the roster as they grappled with economic problems.
Strong computer demand benefited a host of companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, AST Research, Intel, Amdahl, Merisel, Conner Peripherals, Quantum and Maxtor.
Countrywide Credit Industries, a Pasadena mortgage-banking firm, managed its 106% sales increase largely because of vastly increased loan originations made possible by low interest rates.
The fast-growing medical supplies industry produced sales growth for McKesson Corp. (up 18%) and Bergen Brunswig (up 24%). The latter also added sales through acquisitions.
Walt Disney Co.’s sales rose 21% with the help of video sales from “Beauty and the Beast,” “Fantasia” and “101 Dalmations.”
Rejoining the roster was Carter Hawley Hale Stores, the Los Angeles-based retailer that was removed from the 1991 list because of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The company emerged from bankruptcy-court protection last year.
Rapid sales growth aided joiners TakeCare Inc., Countrywide Credit, House of Fabrics and ICN Pharmaceuticals. Homestake Mining hopped onto the list through its 1992 purchase of International Corona Corp. of Canada, which made the San Francisco-based company one of the world’s largest gold producers.
Also new to the list were the newly public WellPoint Health Networks, a Woodland Hills health maintenance organization, and Foodmaker, San Diego-based parent of Jack in the Box fast-food restaurants.
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Among those who fell off the list were Security Pacific (purchased by BankAmerica), HomeFed Corp. (filed for bankruptcy-court protection a few months before its Home Federal Bank of San Diego was seized by regulators), Unocal Exploration (merged into a subsidiary of Unocal Corp.), Pathe Communications (seized by creditors) and L.A. Gear (sharp revenue drop).
Granite Construction, Fremont General and Guy F. Atkinson Co. were all on the 1991 list but were too small to make the 1992 list.
The Sales 100
Companies ranked by overall revenue.
1992 Pct. ’91 sales change Rank Rank Company ($ millions) from ’91 1 1 Chevron Corp. 37,464.0 3 2 2 Atlantic Richfield Co. 19,248.0 2 3 4 Hewlett-Packard Co. 17,120.0 15 4 5 BankAmerica Corp. 15,262.0 24 5 3 Safeway Inc. 15,151.9 0 6 12 McKesson Corp. 11,493.3 18 7 6 Rockwell International 10,837.9 -6 8 11 Pacific Gas & Electric 10,296.1 5 9 10 Lockheed Corp. 10,100.0 3 10 8 Pacific Telesis Group 9,935.0 0 11 9 Unocal Corp. 8,895.0 -8 12 7 Occidental Petroleum 8,494.0 -16 13 14 SCE Corp. 7,983.6 6 14 18 Walt Disney Co. 7,979.1 21 15 15 Price Co. 7,642.4 8 16 20 Apple Computer Inc. 7,224.2 11 17 17 Fluor Corp. 6,846.8 5 18 27 Intel Corp. 5,844.0 22 19 24 Vons Cos. 5,595.5 5 20 23 Litton Industries 5,592.1 2 21 22 Northrop Corp. 5,550.0 -3 22 26 Bergen Brunswig Corp. 5,499.3 24 23 21 Wells Fargo & Co. 5,204.0 -11 24 16 Transamerica Corp. 4,987.8 8 25 25 First Interstate Bancorp 4,101.8 -20 26 29 Consolidated Freightways 4,055.6 -1 27 30 National Medical Enterprises 3,844.5 -3 28 33 Sun Microsystems 3,831.7 11 29 32 Times Mirror Co. 3,702.0 2 30 28 H.F. Ahmanson & Co. 3,637.5 -21 31 34 Dole Food Co. Inc. 3,375.5 5 32 31 Great Western Financial 3,347.0 -15 33 36 Seagate Technology 3,079.4 15 34 38 Gap Inc. 2,960.4 18 35 19 Pacific Enterprises 2,900.0 -4 36 35 Teledyne Inc. 2,887.6 -10 37 37 Avery Dennison Corp. 2,622.9 3 38 39 American President Cos. 2,574.4 2 39 48 Amdahl Corp. 2,524.7 48 40 40 Longs Drug Stores 2,475.5 5 41 42 Computer Sciences Corp. 2,474.4 27 42 Wellpoint Health Networks 2,275.2 18 43 54 Merisel Inc. 2,238.7 41 44 53 Conner Peripherals 2,238.4 40 45 Carter Hawley Hale 2,220.5 0 46 43 Tandem Computers Inc. 2,066.3 7 47 45 Syntex Corp. 2,043.4 5 48 41 Golden West Financial 2,025.6 -10 49 46 San Diego Gas & Electric 1,870.9 5 50 50 National Semiconductor 1,857.6 12 51 52 Mattel Inc. 1,847.9 12 52 56 Fleetwood Enterprises 1,847.1 22 53 61 PacifiCare Health Systems 1,828.9 37 54 49 Clorox Co. 1,758.3 5 55 58 FHP International Corp. 1,755.5 23 56 69 Quantum Corp. 1,536.2 43 57 66 Advanced Micro Devices 1,514.5 23 58 57 Rykoff-Sexton Inc. 1,502.6 0 59 47 California Federal Bank 1,413.3 -27 60 51 Union Bank 1,386.4 -15 61 72 Maxtor Corp. 1,372.9 43 62 62 Raychem Corp. 1,361.7 7 63 65 MagneTek Inc. 1,360.1 16 64 44 Glenfed Inc. 1,358.2 -33 65 63 Potlatch Corp. 1,326.6 7 66 67 Oracle Systems Corp. 1,309.9 21 67 70 Foundation Health Corp. 1,285.2 15 68 60 Varian Associates 1,275.1 -7 69 59 Rohr Inc. 1,274.0 -9 70 Foodmaker Inc. 1,255.8 6 71 68 Hilton Hotels Corp. 1,203.2 11 72 82 AST Research Inc. 1,140.5 38 73 71 Jacobs Engineering Group 1,137.7 11 74 76 Western Digital Corp. 1,137.5 24 75 85 First American Financial 1,115.5 47 76 64 Kaufman & Broad Home 1,094.2 -10 77 89 Amgen Inc. 1,093.0 60 78 79 Ross Stores 1,043.1 13 79 77 20th Century Industries 990.6 9 80 93 Silicon Graphics Inc. 948.8 10 81 73 Caesars World 938.9 -2 82 84 Charles Schwab Co. 909.0 14 83 80 Beckman Instruments 908.8 6 84 81 Allergan Inc. 897.7 7 85 Sunamerica 839.8 3 86 91 Applied Materials 800.0 21 87 90 Smart & Final Inc. 765.1 15 88 86 American Building Maint. 762.3 2 89 92 Adia Services Inc. 742.7 15 90 96 National Health Labs 721.4 19 91 94 Pinkerton’s Inc. 703.7 10 92 78 Coast Savings Financial 685.3 -28 93 Homestake Mining 659.6 5 94 87 LSI Logic Corp. 617.5 -12 95 TakeCare Inc. 615.9 110 96 99 Marshall Industries 605.4 8 97 Countrywide Credit Indus. 573.3 106 98 House of Fabrics 557.5 13 99 ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. 551.8 20 100 100 Zenith National Insurance 549.3 1
Source: STAR Services. Certain historical data is from Standard & Poor’s Compustat Inc.
