The ranks of fast-growing public companies based in Orange County are on the rise and moving beyond the shadow of the recent recession.
The 69 fastest-growing public companies combined for $85 billion in revenue for the 12 months through June, up nearly 27% from the same period two years earlier, according to this week’s Business Journal list (see page 40).
This week’s list is a mix of Fortune 500 companies, small companies trading on over-the-counter exchanges, and others in between. It is our largest to date, with 69 companies that met the criteria for the annual list (see About the Fastest-Growing Public Companies List, page 39).
The expanded list is a reflection, in part, of the strides many of the area’s public companies have made to grow business in the aftermath of the recent recession, which ran from late 2007 to mid-2009.
In 2010, when the force of the recession hit the hardest, there were 38 companies listed, with a minimum increase in revenue of 5.5%
Last year’s list included 44 companies with a cutoff of 10% on revenue growth. They combined for a 42% increase in revenue.
This year’s list—which required a minimum two-year sales growth rate of at least 13%—is a marked improvement over a year ago despite a lower overall rate of growth. This year’s list would have shown a cumulative 51% increase in sales if only the top 44 companies were included.
Prerecession High
The growth rate on sales still falls short of what was seen before effects of the recent recession took full hold. The 50 fast-growing public companies on our list in 2008, for example, saw a cumulative 93% two-year growth rate.
Sixteen companies on this week’s list exceed the 93% growth rate, up from eight a year ago.
Newport Beach-based healthcare services company SearchCore Inc. broke the 1000% growth mark. It had been four years since that last happened.
The growth seen in this week’s list largely mirrors trends seen in the Business Journal’s annual Fastest-Growing Private Companies list, which came out last month and had a minimum growth rate of 15%.
The top 154 private companies in OC saw growth of $23.3 billion, a 37% increase from two year-ago levels, according to October’s list, which also included a record number of entries.
Jobs
The sales growth has come with hiring.
Companies on this week’s fast-growing public company list employ about 20,000 people in OC, a nearly 6% increase from a year ago.
Inclusion on the list does not necessarily translate into profitability: 28 companies on this week’s list, including nine of the top 20, reported losses in net income for the 12 months ending in June.
The 69 companies on this week’s list combine for about $4.2 billion in profit during the prior year, an average of about $61 million per company. Companies on last year’s list earned about $54 million per company.
About $3.7 billion of those profits came from three of the larger and better-known companies in OC, all based in Irvine: chipmaker Broadcom Corp. (No. 42); disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. (No. 45); and drug maker Allergan Inc. (No. 63) (see related story, page 1).
Big companies also dominate the share of revenue on this week’s list.
Allergan, Broadcom, Western Digital and Santa Ana-based electronics distributor Ingram Micro Inc. combine for more than $60 billion, about 70%, of the list’s total revenues seen for the past 12 months.
Thirty-three companies on the list trade on Nasdaq, seven are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the remainder trade on smaller exchanges.
Download the 2012 OC’s FASTEST GROWING PUBLIC COs list (pdf)
