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Big Companies, Big Revenue: 75 Largest Private Companies in Arkansas Bring In $32.8B

5 min read

The 75 largest private companies in Arkansas generated total revenue — self-reported and estimated — of $32.8 billion in their most recent fiscal years, up nearly 7 percent in a year.

The price of entry to this year’s list of the 75 largest private companies in the state was a bit lower — $84 million, compared with almost $90 million for last year’s list.

As usual, Stephens Inc. of Little Rock tops the list and, as usual, has probably the least reliable estimate for its revenue: $2.25 billion. That’s the same estimate as on last year’s list.

But most of the revenue figures on the list, 63 of 75, came directly from the companies, including two that had never participated in our list research before: Priority Wire & Cable of Little Rock and Ozark Mountain Poultry of Rogers.

The companies occupying the top 15 spots on the list are the same as last year, albeit with considerable shuffling around. A 25 percent increase in revenue moved Bruce Oakley Inc. of North Little Rock from No. 9 to No. 6, while 2014’s falling fuel prices resulted in Flash Market Inc. of West Memphis sliding from No. 7 to No. 11.

Bruce Oakley’s total revenue rebounded above the $1 billion mark that it first achieved in 2012. The growth was thanks in part to its purchase in February 2014 — about halfway through its fiscal year — of Johnston’s Port 33 Inc., the largest private terminal operator on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma.

However, Flash Market slipped back to nine digits. As a result, the number of billion-dollar private companies in the state remains at eight.

(Get the list! Check out Arkansas’ 75 Largest Private Companies ranked by revenue, mostly provided by the companies themselves. Data also includes previous year’s revenue, total employees and total Arkansas employees, year established, business description, top executive, and contact info. Available in both PDF and spreadsheet formats.)

Newcomers

Priority Wire & Cable, a 22-year-old company that has deliberately flown below the radar, enters the list at No. 29 with revenue in the year that ended Sept. 30 of $324.5 million. Of its 252 employees, only 95 are in Arkansas. (See Little Rock Company Priority Growing Under the Wire.)

Ozark Mountain Poultry, only 14 years old, debuts at No. 37 with 2014 revenue of $250 million. The fast-growing company grows, harvests and processes specialty chickens that are antibiotic-free, aren’t raised in cages and aren’t fed animal byproducts. More than 3 million pounds of chicken each week is distributed to retailers such as Sam’s Club and to restaurants such as Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panera Bread Co.

Multi-Craft Contractors Inc. of Springdale has participated in Arkansas Business surveys for more than a decade and regularly appears on lists of subcontrators. This year it broke into the list of the state’s largest private companies at No. 75 with 2014 revenue of $84 million, an increase of more than 23 percent from 2013. Multi-Craft is the first subcontractor on a list that routinely includes large general contractors like VCC of Little Rock (No. 15), Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway (No. 24) and Baldwin & Shell Construction Co. of Little Rock.

(Last year, Baldwin & Shell held the No. 75 spot, albeit with slightly more revenue — $88.8 million — than Multi-Craft. This year, Baldwin & Shell made one of the largest leaps on the list, to No. 56 with revenue of $137.1 million, up more than 54 percent.)

Healthscope Benefits of Little Rock, a provider of management services to self-insured employers, was in the 75th position two years ago, and then dropped off the list last year despite continued revenue growth. This year it returns to the list at No. 71, having grown its top line from less than $70 million in 2011 to more than $110 million last year.

Making Room

Adding Priority Wire & Cable, Ozark Mountain Poultry, HealthScope and Multi-Craft to the top 75 means that four other companies had to leave. Two of the departed — QualChoice Holdings Inc. and Landers Auto Sales, both of Little Rock — are no longer eligible for inclusion on the list because they have out-of-state owners.

QualChoice, which offers insured and self-funded health benefit products, was sold in May 2014 to Prominence Health, a subsidiary of Catholic Health Initiatives of Englewood, Colorado. (CHI is also the parent company of St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock.)

The former Landers auto dealerships are now owned by LL Ark Holding Co. LLC of St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, although the family of Steve Landers maintains an ownership interest along with Luther Auto Group of St. Louis Park.

Also gone from the list are two auto dealers: Harold Gwatney Chevrolet of Jacksonville and Bale Chevrolet of Little Rock.

Gwatney didn’t volunteer sale data for 2014, and the most recent estimate by Hoover’s Inc. was below the cutoff for the top 75.

Bale barely made the list last year — No. 74 — and has since sold its Honda dealership to Mark McLarty, part of the family that co-owns RML Automotive (No. 5 on this year’s list).

Jim Bottin

Jim Bottin Enterprises Inc., a name that was once synonymous with fitness in central Arkansas, fills the No. 60 spot on this year’s list, having reported annual revenue of $136 million.

ABC Financial, a subsidiary of the Sherwood company, was listed last year for the first time, but the holding company rather than just part should have been listed. That has been corrected on this year’s list.

28th Annual List of Arkansas Largest Private Companies

Arkansas Business introduced its annual list of the state’s largest private companies in 1988 and continues that tradition this week.

The list originally sought to find the 50 largest companies that are owned and headquartered in Arkansas, but it was expanded to 75 companies in 1996. The list seeks to be comprehensive and authoritative, but the very privacy of the private companies means that it has never been either.

Practically every year we discover companies that should have been on the list in previous years. There are undoubtedly companies that belong on this list that we haven’t identified, and others consistently decline to share their top-line revenue figure, which is the number used to rank the list.

Some 120 companies were surveyed for this year’s list. Of the 75 that made the final cut, 63 reported revenue data. The rest are estimates and are footnoted as such.

If you know of a company that should be on the list, or comes close and should be surveyed for future lists, please contact Editor Gwen Moritz at (501) 372-1443 or GMoritz@ABPG.com.

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