Ratings and Rankings - Area Companies

St. Louis is home to a wide array of companies from the nation's largest privately held companies, like Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Edward Jones, to some of the nation's best small companies, like Cass Information Systems Inc. St. Louis-based companies are noticed on national ranking lists as being among the best places to work, the fastest growing, the most innovative, and more.

Some of the recent ratings and rankings for St. Louis area companies are highlighted here:

Largest Corporations

• Nine St. Louis-based companies were named on Forbes "World's 2000 Largest Public Companies" list, which ranked the biggest companies in the world by sales, market value, assets and profits. The 2008 Global 2000 list included Emerson Electric (275), Anheuser-Busch (322), Monsanto (448), Ameren (725), Express Scripts (805), Peabody Energy (939), MEMC Electronic (1134), Sigma-Aldrich (1827) and Commerce Bancshares (1981).

• Fortune magazine named two St. Louis-based companies among the "Global 500" for 2008. The list includes Emerson Electric (No. 375) and Express Scripts (No. 457).

• Forbes magazine released "American's Largest Private Companies" for 2009, which included the following eight St. Louis-based companies: Enterprise Rent-A-Car (24), Graybar Electric (64), Edward Jones (102), McCarthy Building Cos. (119), Apex Oil (172), World Wide Technology (183), Schnuck Markets (191), UniGroup (209).

• Ten St. Louis-based companies made the Forbes' list of "America's Best Big Companies" for 2008. The companies include Amdocs, Arch Coal, Belden CDT, Emerson Electric, Energizer Holdings, Express Scripts, MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., Monsanto, Peabody Energy, and Sigma-Aldrich.

• World Wide Technology, a distributor of information technology products and services in Maryland Heights, Mo. was ranked the nation's largest black-owned business by Black Enterprise in the magazine's industrial/service 100 list for the sixth consecutive year in 2009. Two other St. Louis-based companies, Roberts Hotels Group L.L.C. and Roberts Brothers Properties L.L.C. ranked No. 51 and No. 59 respectively.

• Fuse, based in St. Louis, ranked the 8th largest black-owned advertising agency on Black Enterprise's Top 10 Ad Agencies list for 2009, up two spots from last year.

Best Place to Work

• Four St. Louis-based companies are included in Fortune magazine's 2010 ranking of "100 Best Companies to Work For". The list includes Edward Jones (No. 2), which has made the list for the eleventh consecutive year, as well as Scottrade (No. 27), Monsanto (No. 59), and Build-A-Bear Workshop (No. 80).

• Seven St. Louis-based companies ranked highly on Fortune's 2009 "America's Most Admired Companies" list in their respective industries. Anheuser-Busch, and Graybar each earned No. 1 in their industries of beverages and wholesalers/diversified respectively. Emerson earned the No. 2 position in the electronics industry. Other industry rankings included Energizer Holdings (No. 5 - Household Products), Express Scripts (No. 6 - Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services), Furniture Brands International (No. 7 - Furniture), and Centene (No. 8 - Health Care: Insurance, Managed Care).

• St. Louis-based Monsanto ranked No. 2 on The Scientist magazine's 7th annual survey of "Best Places to Work in Industry" for institutions with 5,000 or more in its June 2009 issue. The survey asked respondents to rate their places of employment on job satisfaction, benefits, training, integrity, room for intellectual and career development, and more.

• St. Louis-based The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center was ranked as the 15th "Best U.S. Places to Work in Academia" by The Scientist magazine in its November 2008 issue. Rankings were tallied from a poll of 100,000 scientists and researchers working the field of life sciences.

• Five St. Louis area firms ranked on Computerworld's annual "100 Best Places to Work in IT" list for 2009. Monsanto (5), Scottrade Inc. (27), Edward Jones (42), National Information Solutions Cooperative (52),  and MasterCard World (72) were ranked by diversity of employees, training available, career development, retention, and benefits.

• St. Louis-based Monsanto ranked No. 8 on Science's annual survey of best companies to work for in the biotech, biopharma, pharmaceutical and related industries for 2007. The results are based on the responses of over 3,000 participants from the U.S. and continental Europe.

• Two St. Louis law firms, Armstrong Teasdale LLP and Bryan Cave LLP, were named on the top 50 "Best Law Firms for Women" list released by Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers LLC in the August/September 2007 issue. Firms were selected based responses to an application measuring workforce profile, benefits and compensation, parental leave, child care, flexibility and retention and advancement of women.

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car, headquartered in St. Louis, was named No. 26 as top employer in the nation for new college graduates on BusinessWeek's "Best Places to Launch a Career" list for 2007.

• Monsanto was named No. 2 on Science magazine's"Top Employers 2008" for innovative leadership in its industry, moving the company in the right direction.

Fastest Growing

• Inc. magazine's 2009 list of American's 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies included 49 St. Louis-area firms. The St. Louis-based companies that ranked within the top 500 include Dynalabs (295), Impact Group (323), and FURminator (356).
• Two St. Louis-based firms were named on BusinessWeek SmallBiz's 11th annual "Inner City 100" list of the fastest-growing inner city companies in the country. The companies include Voxitas (No. 29) and QSR (No. 64).

• Three St. Louis-based companies were named on Fortune's 100 Fastest-Growing Companies list for 2009. Stifel Financial (No. 25), Monsanto (No. 41), and Ralcorp Holdings (No. 75) were ranked based on revenue and profit growth over the past three years, along with total return.

• St. Louis is home to two of the 100 fastest growing inner-city companies in America - NSI Marketing Services (No. 84) and Trivers Associates (No. 95) - according to the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Inc. magazine's 2008 Inner City 100.

• One St. Louis-based company, Reliv International Inc. was ranked No. 47 on BusinessWeek's list of America's 100 Hot Growth Small Companies for June 2007.

• St. Louis-based LMI Aerospace made Fortune Small Business magazine’s 2008 list of the top 100 fastest-growing small public companies, ranking No. 21 in the July/August 2008 issue.

Best Small Companies

• Two St. Louis-based companies - Cass Information Systems and ESCO Technologies - made Forbes' list of "The 200 Best Small Companies" in the United States in October 2009, ranking No. 124 and No. 194 respectively in the nation.

Most Influential

• BusinessWeek named St. Louis-based Monsanto on its top 10 list of "The World's Most Influential Companies" in its December 22, 2008 issue. Monsanto was named for the way it has revolutionized farming, positively influencing the global food chain.

Best Customer Service

• St. Louis-based Enterprise Rent-A-Car was recently named as a "Customer Service Champ" by BusinessWeek in its February 2009 issue. Enterprise was ranked No. 16 on the list, based on the perceived quality of the company’s staff and what customers think of companies’ processes, such as return policies and reservation procedures.

Top Corporate Performers

• Two St. Louis-based companies, Express Scripts and MEMC Electronic Materials, were named No. 22 and No. 24 respectively on The BusinessWeek 50 list for 2009. These top performing companies were measured by return on capital and sales growth, as well as being ranked next to other companies within their sectors.

• Emerson, based in St. Louis, was named No. 76 on Software Magazine's 2009 list of World’s Largest Software and Services Providers, based on total worldwide software and services revenues for fiscal 2008.

• Seven St. Louis-based firms made the Barron's 500 list for 2008, which ranks the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. and Canada measured on sales factors such as stock-price performance and median cash flow return on investment. The companies include Emerson (No. 24), Monsanto Co. (No. 45), Express Scripts (No. 57), Anheuser-Busch (No. 254), Ameren Corp. (No. 346), Charter Communications Inc. (No. 376), and Reinsurance Group of America (No. 424).

• St. Louis-based UniGroup Inc. and Monsanto were named to CIO magazine's "2008 CIO 100" list, which honors organizations around the globe for displaying the highest level of excellence in information technology.

Most Green

• Monsanto Company was named on IDG's Computerworld top 12 Green-IT Companies for 2008 list, which ranked companies working to reduce energy consumption in IT equipment and using technology to conserve energy and lower carbon emissions. Monsanto was the only agriculture company on the list.

Most Innovative

• Fourteen St. Louis companies made the 2008 InformationWeek 500, an annual list of the most innovative users of information technology in the nation. The companies include Ameren, Arch Coal, CCA Global Partners, Emerson, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, Graybar Electric, Maritz, MasterCard, Monsanto, Savvis Inc., Scottrade, Solutia, UniGroup, and Wachovia Securities*. 

Most Diverse

• Monsanto ranked No. 25 on DiversityInc's "2008 Top 50 Companies for Diversity" list for high human capital and corporate and organizational communications marks. Monsanto was the only St. Louis-based company to rank on this list.

ADDITIONAL RATINGS AND RANKINGS  Doing Business  Transportation  Research & Development  Health Care  Education  Quality of Life

*Wachovia Securities now operates as Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC, effective May 1, 2009.