Wal-Mart Is Most Admired Company

Fortune announced today that Wal-Mart, the AR-based retail giant, is No. 1 on the magazine’s annual survey of Most Admired Companies, marking the first time in the survey’s 21-year history that the nation’s largest company is also its most admired. Johnson & Johnson (No. 6) and Procter & Gamble, at No. 10, were the only companies in the household and personal products industry to crack the top 10.

“The planting of Wal-Mart’s flag atop yet another summit caps a year in which the company seemed to ignore both the economic slowdown and the swirling corporate scandals,” said Nicholas Stein, who wrote the introduction to the list.

As striking as Wal-Mart’s rise is the fall of General Electric, which held the No. 1 spot for the past five years. This can be attributed in part to Wall Street’s increasing impatience with opaque financial statements after the demise of Enron, as well as the very public breakup of former chief executive officer Jack Welch’s marriage.

Rounding out the top 10 are Southwest Airlines (No. 2); Berkshire Hathaway (No. 3); Dell Computer (No. 4); General Electric (No. 5); J&J; Microsoft (No. 7); FedEx (No. 8); Starbucks (No. 9); and P&G.

The three other companies ousted from this year’s list-Intel, Home Depot and Citigroup-have also taken hits. “Chipmaker Intel, facing the worst slump in the history of the PC industry, earned $3.1 billion last year-ahead of 2001 but down 70% from 2000,” said Mr. Stein. “The company’s shares have declined 80% from their 2000 high of nearly $75. At Home Depot, where once-sizzling growth has slowed, the stock lost 52% of its value in 2002, the largest drop of any company on the Dow. As for Citigroup, its “reputation was tarnished when the company was fined $400 million last year after being implicated in the industry-wide scandal over conflicts of interest between investment banking and research divisions.”