(The Virginian-Pilot posted the following article by Carolyn Shapiro on its website on April 1.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Hampton Roads’ two Fortune 500 companies, Smithfield Foods Inc. and Norfolk Southern Corp., moved up in the magazine’s 2003 rankings, as the meat giant and the railroad saw their sales grow.
The 2003 rankings included 18 Virginia-based companies, up from 16 in the prior year’s list. Fortune magazine released the rankings, which are based on annual revenue, Sunday.
Smithfield, with fiscal 2002 sales of $7.4 billion, climbed to No. 255 from No. 305. The world’s largest hog farmer and pork processor grew its revenue by about 25 percent from the prior year, mostly from buying new businesses.
Norfolk Southern stepped up to No. 279 from 293. Its 2002 revenues reached $6.3 billion, an almost 2 percent increase from the prior year, due to growth in automotive shipments and intermodal business — which involves the transfer of truck trailers or ocean containers to and from rail cars.
Virginia gained two new companies on the Fortune 500 list. Advance Auto Parts Inc. garnered Roanoke a place in the rankings, at No. 466, with sales of $3.3 billion. NVR Inc., a home-building company based in McLean, joined the list at No. 482, with revenue of $3.1 billion.
CSX Corp. remained on Virginia’s tally because its headquarters were in Richmond in 2002, ranking No. 231. But since former CSX Chairman John W. Snow’s appointment as U.S. Treasury secretary in December, the company moved its headquarters to Jacksonville, Fla., at the center of its rail operations. Its $8.2 billion in annual revenue will be in Florida’s rankings next year.
The move contributes to a shift in the concentration of the state’s Fortune 500 companies from Richmond to Northern Virginia. While the Richmond area once represented the hub of Virginia’s largest corporations, it has six names on the current list, compared with nine in Northern Virginia.
Industry consolidation also has chipped away at Virginia’s presence on the list. Corporate takeovers of Reynolds Metals, America Online and Richfood Holdings have removed those companies from the Fortune 500 since 2000, when Virginia had 20 names on the list.
Virginia’s top-ranked company for the past several years has been Freddie Mac, a McLean-based provider of financing for home mortgages, which stepped up to No. 32 from 41 with revenue of $39.7 billion. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., topped the Fortune 500 list for the second year in a row.
Economic development leaders in Hampton Roads champion their two-company claim on the Fortune 500.
C. Jones Hooks, president and chief executive officer of the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance, said he often uses the presence of those companies to market the region.
Norfolk Southern and Smithfield highlight Hampton Roads’ strength in two important industries — food processing, and transportation and logistics. That helps to attract and spin off related businesses, Hooks said.