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Top Market Cap: Region's global connection evidenced by its top companies
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PNC Financial Services Group Inc. ranks No. 8 as the only company among the region's top 10 largest public companies actually based in Pittsburgh.
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Western Pennsylvania's connection to the rest of the world is evident in the region's 50 largest public companies: only one company among the 10 biggest actually calls Pittsburgh home and the headquarters of three others are overseas.
GlaxoSmithKline, a United Kingdom health care product manufacturer, tops the list, followed by telecommunications giant Verizon, which is headquartered in New York. Two German companies with large presences in Western Pennsylvania -- Siemens AG and Bayer -- finished in the top 10, as did Royal Bank of Scotland, the parent of Citizens National, the region's second-largest retail bank.
The only company among the top 10 actually based in Pittsburgh is No. 8 PNC Financial Services Group. Its former crosstown rival, New York-based Bank of New York Mellon, placed 10th.
The rankings are based on market capitalization, a measure of the value investors place on a company. It is determined by multiplying the number of shares a company issues by the price they trade at on a given day.
For the Post-Gazette Top 50, market cap was measured as of Dec. 30, the last trading session of 2011, so the results reflect how regional stocks performed last year. Shares of Glaxo rose 16 percent last year to give it a market cap of $115.2 billion. Verizon shares advanced 12 percent, giving the company a market cap of $113.6 billion.
Among the 50 companies on the list, eight are based in five countries outside the United States and 16 others are headquartered in 11 states outside of Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is home to 26 of the companies on the list.
Companies from three other countries are represented on the roster: Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands ranked 11th; Montreal-based Bombardier finished 24th; and Rome's Finmeccanica, the parent of Ansaldo STS (formerly Union Switch & Signal), placed 38th. Another German company, chemical maker Lanxess, finished 28th.
PNC shares fell 5 percent in 2011, giving Pittsburgh's biggest retailer bank a market cap of $30.3 billion. BNY Mellon's ranking was hurt by its stock's 34 percent slide last year. It had a market cap of $24.1 billion.
After PNC, you will not find a home-grown company on the list until H.J. Heinz, which captured the 14th spot with a market cap of $17.3 billion.
Three other companies headquartered in the region are nearby: PPG Industries (17th, $12.9 billion market cap); Mylan (19th, $9.2 billion market cap); and Consol Energy (20th, $8.3 billion market cap).
Aluminum producer Alcoa, which maintains a large presence in the region after relocating its headquarters to New York, ranked 18th.
GNC Holding, the Downtown nutritional supplements retailer that had Wall Street's top performing initial public offering last year, made the list, finishing 33rd with a market cap of $3 billion. GNC shares rose 81 percent last year, making it the region's top-performing stock.
The list includes 17 companies with market caps exceeding $10 billion and 45 with market caps of over $1 billion. The smallest company on the list, Moon titanium producer RTI International Metals, had a market cap of $701 million.
First Published March 20, 2012 12:00 am
