25 most important private companies

Fortune Editors

Companies Find a New Allure in Going Private

Alan Murray

No Time for Socialists

Fortune has long celebrated the achievements of massive publicly-held corporations in lists such as the long-running Fortune 500. Today, as even super-hot startups forgo IPOs (at least for now), and some public behemoths turn private, the time has come to recognize the hugely significant contributions of those corporations that choose not to sell their stock to the public.

It provides 50 million rides per month in the U.S. It operates in more than 400 cities around the world. It employs nearly 7,000 people, not including its million-plus global network of contractor-drivers. Its lobbyists fight nonstop regulatory battles in municipalities from Austin to Seoul, deploying a combination of sweet-talking, threats, and grass-roots campaigning. It has raised a total of $8 billion in venture capital, most recently at a valuation of $62.5 billion—about $10 billion more than Ford Motor’s public market value. Uber is six years old.
For these reasons, Uber is Fortune’s most important private company of 2016, a global bully that is ferociously fighting competitors with names like Lyft, Didi, and Ola, even while it is changing assumptions about everything from drunk driving to seamless payment for services rendered. What makes Uber so influential is that it’s as much an idea as a company. A mobile-first, global-fast network that couldn’t have existed without the smartphone platforms developed by Apple and Google, Uber and its many “Uber for …” imitators are changing the face of business. Uber’s ambitions are as big as its youthful accomplishments. It aims to lead in self-driving cars, food delivery, and arranging carpools. One day it will even attempt to go public and leave this list. But not yet.

Uber

Consider this figure: $5 ­trillion. That’s how much Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments collectively manage, according to the companies’ most recent figures. It’s no exaggeration to say that the financial ­security of millions of Americans rests heavily on these two behemoths.
Fidelity is the largest provider of 401(k) and related retirement-plan services, and it long thrived with actively managed mutual funds and star managers. Vanguard has always been the omega to ­Fidelity’s alpha—and in recent years it surpassed its rival in assets under management (Vanguard now oversees $3 trillion). Vanguard’s founder, John Bogle, of course, was the avatar of low-fee, passively managed index funds (and later ETFs). Bogle’s philosophy has become so popular that it has reshaped an entire generation of investors and eventually pushed even Fidelity to follow Vanguard’s lead and offer its own index funds.

Vanguard | Fidelity (tie)

The notoriety of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch as political contributors tends to obscure their mostly self-effacing but hugely important company. Koch Industries generates $115 billion in annual revenue in businesses ranging from oil and gas to agriculture, materials, and paper towels. It has used its freedom from the pressures of public markets to make astute long-term bets. For instance, it became a global agribusiness player over a decade via under-the-radar investments; it picked up electronics components manufacturer Molex for $7.2 billion in 2013, anticipating a boom in the Internet of things; and seeing a future of water shortages, Koch has been exploring technologies such as desalination.

Koch Industries

Everything about Bridgewater is radical, from its size to its culture. With more than $150 billion under management, it’s the world’s biggest hedge fund company and has produced a net gain of $45 billion, the most in hedge fund history, according to LCH Investments. (Clients are institutions such as pension funds.) Its flagship $70 bil­lion Pure Alpha fund has averaged 13% annual returns since 1991. The firm is known for founder Ray Dalio’s culture of transparency, governed by 210 “principles.” (Sample: “Only believable people have a right to opinions.”) Recent tensions at the top led the firm to hire ex–Apple exec Jon Rubinstein as co-CEO.

Bridgewater Associates

Every day most Americans—usually without realizing it—eat food that Cargill has touched in some way. With $120 billion in sales, it is the largest private company in the U.S. and has its hand in almost every part of the food chain, from providing feed to livestock producers to selling ingredients to manufacturers. MacLennan is remaking the 151-year-old company to suit shifting consumer preferences. Cargill has reduced its use of antibiotics in turkeys and cattle, and created a GMO-free corn syrup, among other things. The shake-up is needed: Results have slumped in part because of a slowdown in emerging markets.

Cargill

They used to call it good old American know-how, and Bechtel embodies the concept. What it knows is how to build things—big things. With $40 billion in annual revenue, Bechtel has been constructing epic projects for 109 years, ranging from the Hoover Dam to the Trans-Arabian Pipeline to, today, a massive liquefied-natural-gas terminal in Louisiana and a $10.1 billion project to burrow a subway into the Saudi Arabian sands beneath Riyadh. As editor-at-large Shawn Tully puts it (see “<a href="http://fortune.com/bechtel-construction/" target="_blank">The Master of Megaprojects</a>”), “Bechtel has arguably changed the face of the physical world more than any other company, anywhere.”

Bechtel

Kaiser Permanente may just be an antidote to our perpetually ailing health care system. The 71-year-old nonprofit—it’s a health plan, a hospital system, and a physicians’ group all in one—provides high-­quality and relatively affordable care to some 10 million members in eight states. As both the payer and the provider, Kaiser (2015 revenue: $61 billion) aims to keep costs low and patients healthy: Salaried doctors focus on prevention and positive outcomes; records are digitized; “advice nurses,” reachable by phone, avert pricey needless emergency room visits; and the company conducted 22 million email consultations in 2015.

Kaiser Permanente

The McKinsey consultant is an icon of American business, right up there with the gray-suited IBM man. For nearly a century, few firms have had the ear of CEOs like McKinsey and hence such a massive influence on global business. Its approach has always been to disclaim credit (or blame) for its advice, so it’s often hard to detect its fingerprints. But various chroniclers describe it as responsible for business-changing ideas ranging from strategic layoffs to using budgeting as a management tool. The firm has produced a roster of powerful alumni, from the illustrious (Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg) to the ignominious (ex–Valeant CEO Michael Pearson).

McKinsey

Some companies are important in themselves. Sequoia matters because it finds and nurtures important companies. The venture capital firm’s greatest hits include Apple, Google, Oracle, and Cisco. But it hasn’t coasted, with success only accelerating in recent years. It saw a 157-fold return on its investment in WhatsApp when the messaging app was sold to Facebook in 2014. Other wins include Square, Stripe, Airbnb, and Alibaba. Still, its record is less stellar in another category: Like some rivals, Sequoia has no female investing partners in the U.S., and a partner was recently ousted after being sued for sexual and physical abuse. (He has denied the charges.)
Correction: An earlier version of this entry misstated the return on Sequoia's investment in WhatsApp.

Sequoia Capital

Think of all that has gone wrong for the National Football League in recent years—the disturbing, widening toll of concussions on its players and the highly publicized scandals involving violence (Ray Rice and others) and cheating (“Deflategate”). Yet in the face of all that, the league’s revenue just keeps on rising. The Super Bowl is more of a global event than ever. And a generation has become addicted to the pleasures of fantasy football.
Most important, the NFL is the best platform to reach the American people: It’s the last reliable advertising juggernaut in an era of splintered audiences, and its TV ratings regularly pulverize the numbers for not only other sports but also anything else in its path. Imagine what would happen if the NFL had a good year.

The U.S. Hispanic population has reached 55 million, and Univision is its largest provider of news and entertainment—and arguably its most potent voice, institutionally and through its top news anchor, Jorge Ramos. The company started in 1962 with a single Spanish-language TV station in Texas and has become a ­giant, with nationwide programming as well as 59 local television stations and 67 radio stations. Univision has been expanding its digital reach with a site called Fusion (co-owned by ABC). With annual revenue of $2.8 billion and fifth place in primetime rankings, the company late last year delayed plans to go public.

Univision

Trends in American eating habits come and go, but one thing remains constant: a collective sweet tooth. For more than a century Mars has been sating those cravings with an assortment of what are now billion-dollar brands known to 8-year-olds and octogenarians alike: M&amp;M’s, Snickers, and the namesake Mars. The tasty tally: $33 billion in annual sales, and the family-owned company is looking to keep growing. It is spending $100 million to expand a Kansas chocolate factory and scooped up Mexican chocolate maker Grupo Turin. Responding to desires for purity even in sugary treats, Mars has vowed to remove artificial colors from its products.

Mars

The agency formerly known as William Morris Endeavor is redefining the talent business, one acquisition at a time. It snapped up sports, entertainment, and marketing powerhouse International Management Group for $2.4 billion in 2014. In 2015 it closed a dozen more deals, acquiring Professional Bull Riders, which puts on—you guessed it—rodeos, and the Miss Universe Organization, which it bought from Donald Trump. The agency’s current valuation? About $5.5 billion. Last year it generated Ebitda of more than $400 million, thanks to its growing portfolio of brands—and megastar clients ranging from Tina Fey and Oprah Winfrey to Cam Newton and Serena Williams.

WME-IMG

PwC is the world’s largest professional-services firm, with $35.4 billion in revenue (which includes significant increases in the U.S., India, and China last year). The firm serves 418 of the companies on Fortune’s Global 500 list, advises more than 100,000 private businesses, and operates in 157 countries. It’s simply ubiquitous in everything from assurance (the $15.2-billion-in-sales unit that includes auditing) to tax ($8.9 billion) and advisory services ($11.3 billion). And if you don’t encounter PwC reps in your offices, you’ve probably seen them on the Academy Awards, for which the firm and its ancestors have been stewarding ballots for 82 years.

Ask people in much of the South where they shop for food, and they’ll say, “My Publix!” The $32.4 billion supermarket chain, founded by George Jenkins in 1930 in Winter Haven, Fla., has long wowed shoppers, who rave about its stellar customer service (personalized special orders are encouraged), but Publix’s greatest achievement is how it takes care of employees. An employee stock-ownership program started by Jenkins in the early days has helped it become the world’s largest worker-owned company, employing nearly 180,000 people in 1,113 stores in six Southeastern states, with plans to expand into Virginia next year. Read more about Publix in our feature <a href="http://fortune.com/publix-best-companies/" target="_blank">My Five Days of 'Bleeding Green.'</a>

Publix

Could Wall Street function without Bloomberg terminals? Someday we’ll undoubtedly find out, but till then, they’re the data, news, and chat lifeline for an entire industry. The terminals provide tens of billions of pieces of financial information daily to 325,000 financial professionals who pay more than $20,000 a year for a subscription. Founder Mike Bloomberg used that revenue, now roughly $9 billion a year, according to Douglas Taylor of Burton-Taylor International Consulting, to assemble a formidable global business-news empire, making himself a force in everything from politics and philanthropy to the debate over guns.

Bloomberg

S.C. Johnson has long had a foothold in households, with products like Windex, Pledge, Shout, Glade, Raid, Drano, and Ziploc bags. And its astute marketing has made consumers think of it first as a family company rather than as a seller of chemicals. Now it’s seeking an even bigger footprint—an ethical one—out in the world. Under CEO Johnson (the fifth generation of family ownership) the company has lobbied for stricter chemical regulations and pushed for more transparency of the chemicals used in products. S.C. Johnson, which also makes Off! bug spray, is preparing a push to combat the mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus.

S.C. Johnson & Son

State Farm is another titan that earns its place on this list through sheer mass—­record revenue of $80 billion in its most recent reported year—and for how integral it is to the financial security of millions of people. After all, State Farm, which is owned by its policyholders, insures more U.S. homes and cars than any other company. Along with other insurers, it may even influence how people drive. It offers discounts on premiums for those who drive less or allow State Farm to place sensors in their cars (which track things like speed and sudden braking). It recently patented a wearable device that could vibrate if the driver shows signs of ­drowsiness.

State Farm

At an estimated $900 million last year, Airbnb’s revenues are dwarfed by those of a Cargill. But Airbnb makes up for that in disruptive impact. Hatched out of a San Francisco apartment in 2007, it’s now the largest provider of accommodations in the world. Hotel chains such as Accor are reacting, starting to acquire their own home-sharing platforms and investing in urban timeshares. Airbnb faces regulatory resistance in markets where it runs afoul of local laws. But the company has positioned itself as a way to help the middle class, and its most effective champions are the 80 million people who have used the service as hosts or guests.

Airbnb

If you dine in a restaurant, a country club, or a cafeteria, there’s a good chance some or all of your meal was handled by US Foods along the way. The company distributes some 400,000 products, including branded items and a growing stable of private-label offerings. Its $23 billion in sales last year made it second in market share, behind rival Sysco. The company, whose roots stretch back to the 1850s, is backed by private equity firms KKR and Clayton, Dubilier &amp; Rice, and it may not be private for much longer: It filed for an IPO in February after an agreement to be acquired by Sysco was blocked by a federal judge.

US Foods

Don’t underestimate kitchen and bathroom fixtures. With $5.9 billion in sales, Kohler isn’t just a big seller. It is highly influential in determining how people’s homes look—and has been for 142 years, since founder John Kohler invented one of the first modern bathtubs. Its bathroom fixtures are used by U.S. construction firms more often than any other brand. (Take a look at the sink next time you’re in a hotel.) Growing affluence in China has extended Kohler’s reach; it is now Kohler’s second-largest market, after the U.S. The company remains family owned.

Kohler

Dell may not have the reputational pizzazz it enjoyed back in its heyday. But to hear founder Michael Dell tell it, going private has been just the tonic (despite a 2015 loss of $1.2 billion) for this formerly public seller of PCs (the world’s third largest) and servers. With an agreement to buy data-storage company EMC for $67 billion, the combined entity, to be called Dell Technologies, will carry some serious tech throw weight. The deal brings together several companies, including VMware, Pivotal, SecureWorks, RSA, and Virtustream. Dell is zigging just as much of his industry zags, with HP and eBay splitting up their businesses. Will bigger be better for Dell?

Dell

Tanium is the Usain Bolt of cyber­security: Its search-engine-like software scours corporate networks for all connected machines, plotting the contours in a blazingly fast relay that lets IT managers query and patch computers in seconds (vs. days for rivals). Valued at $3.5 billion, Tanium has raised $300 million, mostly from Andreessen Horowitz (one of the VC firm’s biggest investments). Tanium’s sales tripled in 2015, and it’s stealing market share from established names, such as Symantec. J.P. Morgan Chase named Tanium to its “hall of innovation” for helping enhance the bank’s systems management. Other customers include Target, Amazon, and Verizon.

Tanium

SpaceX has helped reconceive the notion of a space program, showing that what was long viewed as a government function can be capably handled by a company. It dispatched the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit. It’s the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station. And it’s the first organization of any type to land a first-stage orbital-capable rocket. Founder Elon Musk, who has said he wants to retire and die on Mars (presumably a long time from now), has said he keeps SpaceX private to prevent public investors from steering it in the wrong direction in pursuit of short-term profit. Perhaps its most improbable achievement so far: SpaceX is already profitable.

SpaceX

The Top 25

Fortune’s compendium of the brawniest, the most influential, and the most disruptive nonpublic enterprises in the country.

25 Most Important Private Companies

The Top 25

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