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Top Growth: Lanxess leads the pack
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Companies landing atop the heap in the region's growth category this year can boast a triple-digit surge in profits and, except in one case, solid gains in revenue.
The growth rankings consider four standard measures of performance: How much revenues have grown, how much profits have grown, how well the company's stock performed and how effectively management used shareholders' money to generate profits -- a ratio known as return on equity.
The rankings are designed to give the area's smaller businesses a better chance of making it to the top of the charts.
Unlike the formula used to crown Pittsburgh's overall top performing company, the growth calculation ignores a company's market capitalization, actual revenue and actual net income so that size is taken out of the equation.
The top finisher this time was the German rubber and specialty chemicals company Lanxess, even though its stock price skidded 29 percent.
The company, whose U.S. operations are based in Findlay, saw net income shoot up 848 percent and revenue jump 41 percent, in addition to posting an ROE of 23.6 percent.
The British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, with offices in Moon, captured the No. 2 spot, aided by a 58.8 percent ROE and profits that spiked 235 percent despite stagnant revenue.
Third place finisher Fidelity Bancorp posted a modest 9 percent increase in revenue and a 2.2 percent ROE. But the small West View bank with 13 offices in the region was helped to the top by profits that ballooned 320 percent and a stock price that shot up 77 percent.
Rounding out the top five for growth were Latrobe tool maker Kennametal and steel mill supplier TMS International in Glassport.
First Published March 20, 2012 12:00 am
