The 26 Best Managed Companies in America

The January 10, 2005 edition of Forbes magazine has a very interesting article (beginning on page 136) about these 26 companies which are a subset of the Forbes Platinum 400, the Best Big Companies in America.

These companies were first ranked within their industry by many financial metrics including growth in sales and earnings, leverage, stock market returns and earnings forecasts. And from these ranks each company then received a composite score.

Each company was then given an overall score for accounting and governance practices, as well as financial condition and earnings quality. In most cases companies that scored poorly on two or more of these items were dropped from further consideration.

Finally, the editors took a closer look at the top-ranked companies in each industry and considered factors that might not show up on a financial scorecard. And from this process a winner was selected for each industry. And the winners are:

DRS TECHNOLOGIES
WELLS FARGO
CATERPILLAR
DIEBOLD
ECOLAB
PERINI
RAYMOND JAMES
ALLEGHANY
WINNEBAGO
UNITED NATURAL FOODS
MGM MIRAGE
CORN PRODUCTS INTERNATIONAL
AMERIGROUP
COACH
PROGRESSIVE
BALL CORP.
UNIVISION
XTO ENERGY
ADVANCE AUTO PARTS
KLA-TENCOR
SYMANTEC
SANDISK
ALLTEL
EXPEDITORS INTERNATIONAL
EXELON

For more about these companies, go to www.forbes.com/platinum400

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