19 CT Businesses Are Among The Top 500 Public Companies in the U.S.: Forbes

Even though General Electric moved its world headquarters to Massachusetts, it was still rated as the top public company in Connecticut by Forbes' inaugural list of the nation's top public companies. With 333,000 employees and $122.36 billion in sales, the superpower is listed at No. 8 on the national list. General Electric has kept hundreds of jobs in Connecticut and has offices in Plainville, Norwalk and Stamford.

GE was tops among Nutmeg state companies based on Forbes' methodology, which weighs revenue, profit, assets and market value equally. "Weighing these four metrics equally helps account for nuances in the myriad ways that investors value a company," according to Forbes.

After 42 years in Fairfield, the GE began its exodus to Boston in the Summer of 2016. The planned move will be fully completed in several steps by 2018. Their 66-acre Fairfield campus has been sold to Sacred Heart University.

Related:

• Boston Bound: GE Makes Its Decision
• Malloy: GE’s Move to Boston ‘Hurts’
• Connecticut GE Campus Sold to Sacred Heart University
  
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Other Connecticut companies making the list include United Technologies, Charter Communications, Aetna and Cigna. In total, 19 Connecticut-based operations made the list of the top 500 public companies nationwide.

While the rankings released by Forbes in May are an inaugural list, the magazine drew some comparisons with the Forbes' Global 2000 list, which ranks the public companies across the world.

Forbes notes that Goldman Sachs, Disney and Oracle broke into the top 25 Nationally when compared with their comparative position on the global list. Another trend pointed out by Forbes is the relative stability of tech companies over the past year, potentially because of decreasing investor optimism or fears of a Silicon Valley bubble, the magazine notes.

In the oil and gas industry, turbulent oil prices "yanked" these companies throughout the year.
Companies across 38 states and the District of Columbia are represented on the list.

The top Connecticut public companies in 2017 are (national ranking denoted in parentheses):

1. General Electric (8)
2. United Technologies (34)
3. Charter Communications (41)
4. Aetna (62)
5. Cigna (84)
6. Synchrony Financial (109)
7. Hartford Financial Services (124)
8. The Priceline Group (137)
9. Praxair (166)
10. Stanley Black & Decker (206)
11. WR Berkley (274)
12. Amphenol (287)
13. United Rentals (331)
14. Alexion Pharmaceuticals (347)
15. Xerox (417)
16. Interactive Brokers Group (428)
17. Starwood Property Trust (457)
18. XPO Logistics (476)
19. People's United Financial (484)

View Forbes' complete national list here.

Feroze Dhanoa, Patch Staff contributed to this report.

Photo via Sacred Heart University