Fortune magazine has just published its annual Fortune 500 list of America’s largest public companies, and ExxonMobil again leads the pack. ConocoPhillips weighs in as Houston’s largest public company at number six on the Fortune 500.
Here is the top ten:
1. ExxonMobil
2. Wal-Mart Stores
3. General Motors
4. Chevron
5. Ford Motor
6. ConocoPhillips
7. General Electric
8. Citigroup
9. AIG
10. IBM
Houston, with 23 companies on the list, is second only to New York City (44) as a home for Fortune 500 companies. Dallas has 11 companies on the list and San Antonio has five.
By the way, is it just me or is it a sign of the times that two of the Fortune 500’s top ten — GM and AIG — have experienced Enronesque experiences over the past year?
By the way II, don’t miss Larry Ribstein’s terrific post on GM today as he explains how GM’s traditional business form perpetuated a flawed business model and what that could mean for the structuring of firms in the future.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
ribstein taking shots at sloan is just pathetic.
I am reminded about a CLE presentation given me years ago by Irving Younger. He built a trial trap, using his partner EBW in the example. There appeared to be no exit.
Someone in the audience asked, if this happened, What would EBW do?
Younger answered, if it happened to EBW, he would know what to do.
GM’s problems are made entirely by its own management. To the extent the law has anything to say on the subject, GM is where it is because of agency costs that the legal system has not been aggressive enough in attacking.
For example, its management has supported Republican politicians who favored lower income taxes for management when it would have been in the best of GM long ago that the government take over healthcare. Similarly, republicans have supported permitting unlimited imports and movement of factories to non-union states.
when you have fixed investment (auto plants are pretty hard to move) you have to support government policies that keep factories stable