What is the Fortune 1000?
The Fortune 1000 is an annual list of the 1,000 largest companies in the United States. Fortune magazine publishes the list.
How Does the Fortune 1000 Work?
Companies that report their financial data to a United States government agency are eligible for consideration in the Fortune 1000. This typically excludes private companies. Subsidiaries of foreign companies incorporated in the U.S. are also excluded.
The Fortune 1000 ranks companies by revenue, which generally includes revenues from discontinued operations when revenues are reported on a consolidated basis. However, the list also discloses the after-tax profits, assets, stockholders' equity, market value and earnings per share of each company. The list also shows each company's total return to investors, which considers the price appreciation and reinvested dividends of the most widely held or actively traded class of each company's stock.
Why Does the Fortune 1000 Matter?
The Fortune 1000 is actually a broader subset of the Fortune 500, which is a definitive list of the country's largest and often most influential companies. The Fortune 1000 list includes the Fortune 500 plus the next 500 largest companies.
A company's fall in rank or failure to make the list could indicate or reflect trouble for the company or its industry as a whole, and a move up the list generally signals good news. To be on the Fortune 1000 is somewhat prestigious, although it is not the only list that celebrates the growth of business and entrepreneurship in the U.S. Inc. magazine publishes an annual list of the nation's fastest growing private companies.
