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Wal-Mart Holds No. 1 Spot On FORTUNE 500 List For The Fifth Time In Six Years


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FORTUNE announced today that Wal-Mart Stores holds the No. 1 spot on the FORTUNE 500 list, the annual list of America’s largest corporations according to revenue. Wal-Mart regained the top spot posting an ll.2% increase in revenue to $351.1 billion and profits of $11.3 billion. Right behind Wal-Mart is No. 2 Exxon Mobil with $347.3 billion in revenue and the largest profit in history, numbering $39.5 billion. Big oil companies grabbed three of the top five spots with ConocoPhillips at No. 5, bumping Ford Motors to No. 7. Rounding out the top ten on the list are: General Motors (No. 3); Chevron (No. 4); General Electric (No. 6); Citigroup (No. 8); Bank of America (No. 9); and American International Group (No. 10). The list and related stories appear in the April 30 issue of FORTUNE, on newsstands April 23 and at www.CNNMoney.com on April 16.

FORTUNE editor at large Shawn Tully writes: ‘The notion of the little guy striking it rich—finding gold at Sutter’s mill, discovering oil at Spindletop, or cashing in on a dot-com IPO in Silicon Valley—runs deep in American lore. But something even more historic transpired in 2006: A massive swath of the established economy—also known as the FORTUNE 500—collectively generated unprecedented earnings. The grand total: $785 billion, a 29% increase over 2005. Those returns obliterated the previous cyclical peak, $444 billion, achieved in 2000 at the height of the tech explosion. Put simply, American companies are enjoying the most sumptuously profitable period in the 500’s 53-year history…These happy numbers are largely due to a sort of harmonious convergence, a perfect economic calm. Virtually every conceivable force, from mild labor costs to a falling dollar to soaring productivity, has favored big companies.’



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