We reminisce this time of year about the inaugural Top 100 private companies list. It was 12 years ago when we first asked privately-owned local companies in Tarrant County to give us their yearly revenues.
What if no one would share, we wondered – or, I should say, we “worried.”
Slowly, the numbers began to trickle in and before we knew it we had our list of Top 100 privately-held companies ranked by yearly revenues. We also began listing the top 25 publicly-held companies, whose numbers are obviously easier to obtain.
The list of private companies is as accurate as we can make it but improves each year. Some large private companies want to remain that way: private and large and under the radar. Over the years, though, we have had companies complain they should be on the list and aren’t. We remind them they need to answer the questionnaires we send out. We also advertise the upcoming list in the newspaper and online.
Ben E. Keith continues to the largest private company in Tarrant County with sales of $3.8 billion. The company distributes food and beverages, including Budweiser.
Sitting firmly at the No 2 spot is MORSCO, better known to many as Morrison Supply. It, too, has held it place from last year’s list. It has $1.7B in sales. MORSCO has acquired several companies over the past few years. Just 2 years back, it was No. 4 on the list. It’s easy to imagine that an area such as ours with dramatic growth will see changes, dramatic changes, on this list from year to year.
On this year’s list you will find companies that are relatively new and growing, and are making a direct impact on our community. Take Fort Capital, a firm led by Chris Powers. Fort Capital is a commercial real estate firm that, among other endeavors, is remaking the west side of Fort Worth with its River District project. Last year, the company was No. 60 on our list; now it’s No. 28.
Always amazing to us is the economic heft and weight of automobile dealers. As you drive around our area you notice acres and acres of cars. Who is going to buy all these cars, you might ask?
The numbers on our list provide the answer, if only in general: Lots of people are.
Sadly, some of the companies that long populated our list have departed. RadioShack, once the pride and joy of Fort Worth, announced May 26 it would be closing more than 1,000 of its remaining stores over the Memorial Day weekend, making the historic retail chain essentially extinct.
But Fort Worth’s Charles Tandy era still makes an appearance on our lists, with Tandy Leather continuing to have spot on our public company list.
The public company list has some new faces. KMG Chemicals is new to the public company list but the firm has been active making new acquisitions as recently as May, meaning next year they’ll probably move up. Despite its size and contribution to the local economy many in Fort Worth know virtually nothing about KMG, which formulates, manufactures and distributes specialty chemicals worldwide.
We honored all of these companies and many more Wednesday at our annual luncheon at the Fort Worth Club. Some of the individuals recognized were Top Private Company Executive Aslam Khan of Falcon Holdings; Top Public Company Executive Thomas E. Ferguson; Entrepreneur of the Year Kevin Grace of Rising Tide; and Top Restaurateur Jon Bonnell.
And it’s always fair to ask where our company ranks. Because we have holdings in another state, Virginia, and because we combine revenues we do not fit neatly into a spot on our own list. After some divestitures in 2015 our company shrunk but now stands within the $6 million of annual sales range. We employ about 70 persons.
If nothing else, compiling and then viewing this annual lists causes us all to sit back and marvel at how healthy commerce is in North Texas. It’s worth a long “wow.”
Richard Connor is president and publisher of the Fort Worth Business Press. Contact him at rconnor@bizpress.net