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Tuesday, April 09, 2002

By the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Correction/Clarification: (Published April 18, 2002) In our special section, Pittsburgh's Top 50, on April 9, we misstated the 2001 revenues for No. 1 Cochran in an online graphic. The correct figure is $265 million.

It's an eclectic list, combining a handful of household names with a longer compendium of companies and institutions whose monikers most Pittsburghers would be hard pressed to identify.

That's to be expected. After all, the Top 50 private companies and organizations in the region are just that -- private.

	Highmark, Inc. BUSINESS: Operates the region's largest health insurance plans under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield names; as well as nationwide dental and vision plans. HEADQUARTERS: Fifth Ave. Place, Downtown EMPLOYEES: 11,000 Giant Eagle BUSINESS: Operates more than 200 supermarkets HEADQUARTERS: O'Hara EMPLOYEES: 30,000 UPMC Health System BUSINESS: Operates the region's largest hospital network and its second largest health insurance plan HEADQUARTERS: Oakland EMPLOYEES: 31,000 84 Lumber BUSINESS: Operates a nationwide chain of building materials stores. HEADQUARTERS: Eighty-Four, Washington County EMPLOYEES: 5,500 University of Pittsburgh BUSINESS: Higher education HEADQUARTERS: Oakland EMPLOYEES: 11,088 Online Graphic: 2001 Total Sales

The largest of them are well known -- places where people buy insurance, see a doctor, shop for groceries, plan home remodeling projects, or go to school: Highmark Inc., Giant Eagle UPMC Health System, Giant Eagle, 84 Lumber, the University of Pittsburgh.

But the majority have a much lower profile. Unlike the companies whose names turn up in stock market listings or among the Fortune 500, Pittsburgh's Top 50 private organizations are either run as nonprofits or owned by people who decided not to issue shares to the public.

Among those whose names might not ring a bell with most Western Pennsylvanians, however, are numerous companies with national or international reputations in their industries. Gurrentz International, for example, which ranks 19th among the Top 50 private local firms, is one of the nation's largest importers of boneless beef; PTC Alliance, ranked 13th, is an international maker of steel tubing and other metal products with 12 factories in the United States and two in Europe; and No. 34 Snavely Forest Products, a century-old wholesaler of lumber and building materials, has nine locations nationwide.

Because privately held firms also are largely exempt from the kinds of financial disclosures publicly traded companies are routinely required to make, the only people who generally know much, if anything, about them are their owners, customers, employees, competitors and bankers.

Most of the information used to compile the list and a ranking of Pittsburgh's Top 50 private organizations came from Dun & Bradstreet, a business information service. In addition, some was taken from other public sources, such as trade journals, or obtained from the businesses or institutions themselves.

Because their disclosures generally are voluntary, any list of private organizations is likely to be incomplete and in some cases, not completely accurate.

But private or not, some of these companies and institutions have profound public impact -- not to mention a huge collective impact on the region's economy.

Any one of them mounting an initial public stock offering, for example, would easily find a

spot on the list that ranks Pittsburgh's Top 50 public companies by revenue. The smallest of the local private companies, Metaltech Investments, Inc. has annual revenue of $140 million. By comparison, the region's smallest publicly traded company, Laurel Capital, is a sliver of that size, with revenue of $9 million last year.

As for public and economic impact, just think about some of the biggest and best known names on the list.

More than two thirds of the people with health insurance in the region, for example, carry a card bearing Highmark's familiar Blue Cross and Blue Shield logos. Highmark, which ranks as the region's biggest private company, with $6.8 billion in revenue, also is one of the nation's largest health insurers.

UPMC Health System, with the second highest revenue total on the list, rides herd over 18 medical institutions, accounting for 43 percent of the region's hospital beds, and runs the region's second largest health insurance plan. It also ranks as the region's largest private employer, with more than 31,000 people on its payroll.

Much of the hope of developing new economic linchpins for the region, such as biotechnology companies, hinges on the research scientists perform at UPMC as well as at the University of Pittsburgh, which ranks fifth on the list, and Carnegie Mellon University, which ranks 11th.

Clearly, universities and health-care organizations both play a significant role in the region's economy.

Pitt, with revenue of $1.1 billion, is almost as big as the region's 15th largest publicly traded company, DQE Inc., which last year reported revenue of about $1.3 billion. Carnegie Mellon has revenue of $469 million; and Duquesne University, the region's 44th largest private organization, has revenue of $151 million.

Along with UPMC, four other medical institutions or hospital networks had revenue sufficient to place among the region's Top 50 private organizations: Heritage Valley Health System, which ranks 15th; Westmoreland Health System, in the 33rd spot; South Hills Health System, 47th and Washington Hospital, 49th.

In addition, a nursing home operator, Tandem Health Care Inc., ranked 34th; and two Medicaid HMOs, Gateway Health Plan and Three Rivers Health Plans, ranked 12th and 20th respectively.