General Motors No Longer Tops 'Fortune 500'
N E W Y O R K, April 2, 2001 -- Surging energy prices in the United States gaveoil, gas and power companies new fuel in their ascension of theannual Fortune 500.
Oil giant Exxon Mobil surpassed automaker General Motors, rising to No. 1 from No. 3 with the company's highest-ever $210 billion in revenue for 2000. GM, which had revenue of $184.6billion, fell to No. 3.
Other energy companies fared well in 2000, with Enron, at No. 7, rising from No. 18. Duke Energy shot up to No. 17 from69 and Reliant Energy made it up to No. 55 from 114.
Advancers
The list of the largest publicly held companies, ranked byfiscal year 2000 revenues, has been compiled annually since 1955 bythe editors of Fortune. GM, which had held the top spot on the listfor 15 years, now trails No. 2 Wal-Mart Stores in addition to Exxon Mobil.
Energy companies benefited from a surge in revenue brought aboutby falling supplies, utility deregulation, soaring natural gasprices and OPEC's maneuvering to keep oil prices high. In the pastyear, crude oil has sold for as much as $30 a barrel, while in someparts of the United States last summer, gasoline cost more than $2a gallon.
Other energy firms advancing included Texaco, which went from No. 28 to No. 16; Chevron, which was ranked No. 20, upfrom No. 35; and Dynergy, which rose to No. 54 from No. 112.
San Francisco-based Chevron agreed to buy Texaco last Octoberfor $35.1 billion in stock, plus assumed debt of $7.5 billion. Thedeal is expected to close this summer pending review by the U.S.Federal Trade Commission.
Techs and Telecoms
The Internet slowdown and uncertainty about the economy hurt anumber of companies, particularly telecom firms that slid in therankings. AT&T fell from No. 8 to No. 9.
But a merger helped Verizon Communications, formed whenBell Atlantic and GTE combined in May, leapfrog from No. 33 pastrivals WorldCom, No. 32, and SBC Communications, No. 14, to the No. 10 spot.
America Online, which became the first purely Internetcompany to break into the list last year at No. 337, rose to No.271. Since then, it has become AOL Time Warner by dint of itsacquisition of Time Warner. The combined company's revenue of $36.2billion would have made it No. 39 on the new list, though was notcounted there because the deal didn't close until early this year.
Computer companies were led by International Business Machines, which stayed in the top 10, but fell from sixth last year to No. 8.
Microsoft rose to 79 from 84, and Cisco Systems, which makes equipment for the Internet, advanced to 107 from 146, despite the dot-com crash.
PC maker Dell Computer rose to 48 from 56 and Apple Computer rose from 285 to 236. Compaq Computer, meanwhile fell from 20 to 27.
Holding On
Wal-Mart, which remained in the No. 2 spot, had revenues of morethan $193.2 billion. It draws the distinction as being the companywith the most employees on the list, more than 1.2 million worldwide.
The top 10 also included Ford Motor at No. 4, a position it held last year. General Electric stayed at the No. 5 position while Citigroup, the largest financial services company in thenation, rose from seventh place to No. 6.
The highest ranked new company on the list is No. 57 Delphi Automotive Systems, which was spun off by GM in May 1999.
Total profits for the 500 corporations grew 8.4 percent for theyear, down from 1999's level of 28.7 percent, to $444 billion.Revenue grew by more than 13 percent to a combined $7.2 trillionfor 2000. The 500 companies employed more than 24 million workers.