The attached is a little old, published in April. It discusses the next Forbes 500 and which companies are headed in that direction.
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Who's next?
By Om Malik
When the first Forbes 500 companies came out in 1969, International Business Machines (IBM) was one of three technology companies on the list. And Yahoo! cofounders, David Filo and Jerry Yang were only a gleam in their fathers' eyes.
Twenty-nine years later, things have changed. On the latest Forbes 500s lists there are more than 60 technology and telecommunications companies--indicating the increasing pervasiveness of technology in everyday life. And the numbers are likely to go up when next year's list rolls around.
In 1999 expect a score of Internet- and network-related companies. The likely prospects for the 1999 list are Amazon.com (AMZN), a Seattle, Wash.-based online bookseller, Verisign (VRSN), an Internet security software company and networking equipment maker Juniper Networks. (Juniper is likely to go public later in 1998.)
Amazon.com, which went public last year, has a market capitalization of $2.04 billion, while Verisign of Mountain View, Calif. has a market capitalization of $900 million. These figures are much lower than the $3.5 billion market valuation of Watson Pharmaceuticals, which is ranked last on the Forbes 500 list. However, these numbers could change dramatically, if the current demand for Internet stocks continues to rise.
And so far the odds are on Internet stocks' heading higher. Year-to-date, the American Stock Exchange's Internet Stock Index (IIX) is up 15%, to 308.03, versus the 10.7% gain posted by IIX for the whole of 1997, and 2.98% for calendar 1996. (In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq are up about 15% each, year-to-date.)
Juniper on the other hand could be one of this year's hottest IPOs, should the company decide to go public. The buzz around Juniper has helped it raise more then $60 million from the venture capital community, even before the company has produced a single product.
Its list of backers includes 3Com, Telefon AB, LM Ericsson, Northern Telecom, Siemens, Newbridge Networks, Lucent Technologies, and WorldCom's UUNet Technologies unit--which together funneled $40 million last August.
Venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Institutional Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, and Crosspoint Venture Partners contributed another $16 million, while the latest $6 million investment has come from AT&T and the Anschutz Family Investment Co., which holds a majority stake in bandwidth provider Qwest Communications.
With potential customers as its backers and a powerful team of VCs looking to reap hefty returns on their investments, Juniper could just be a shoo-in for the next Forbes 500 companies list.
Of course, these three picks are educated guesses and a lot of strange things can happen between now and 1999--as strange as Yahoo!'s debut on this year's list.
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