Fortune magazine released their annual list of top 500 U.S. companies on June 2. Not surprisingly, Texas-based businesses dominated the rankings.
As the Dallas Morning News pointed out, 52 of the top 500 companies are located in Texas.
Wal-Mart, headquartered in Arkansas, ranked number one on the list but Texas’ Exxon Mobile came in a close second. Exxon Mobile, headquartered in Irving, saw a revenue of $407,666 million last year. “Deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico and a liquefied natural gas project in Papua New Guinea are among the ventures scheduled for this year,” Fortune magazine reported.
Another Texas gas company, Phillips 66, made the top 10. Ranked number six by Fortune, the Houston-based company $161,175 million in revenue last year. According to Fortune magazine, “Phillips 66 is planning to spend about 40% more on capital expenditures in 2014 compared to the prior year, as the company invests in its midstream and chemicals segments to capitalize on North America’s energy renaissance.”
Valero Energy, AT&T, ConocoPhillips, Energy Transfer Equity, Enterprise Partners L.P., Sysco, Plans GP Holdings, and Tesoro–all Texas companies–were also in the top 100.
Texas’ low taxes, healthy job market, and pro-business policies are likely behind the state’s domination of the Fortune 500 list. While oil and gas certainly bolsters the Texas economy, the state has successfully diversified in terms of the industries it supports.
Houston’s Fortune 500 companies were almost all energy-based, while Dallas’ appeared to be more diverse.
Vance Ginn, an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told Breitbart Texas, “The [state’s] economy as a whole is blossoming–there are more Fortune 500 companies moving to Texas than anywhere else in the nation. The Texas model of low taxes, modest government spending, and stable regulations creates an environment where businesses have incentives to move to the state.”
The growth of businesses across a wide spectrum of industries has caused Texas’ population to surge.
Breitbart Texas previously reported on new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, which shows that Texas cities are leading the nation in population growth.
Three of the nation’s top five fastest-growing cities, and seven of the top 15, are located in Texas. According to the Census Bureau, Texas is the only state that is home to more than one city in the top 15.
Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate.
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