Wal-Mart takes top spot on Fortune 500 list; GM 3rd

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070417/BUSINESS01/704170328/1014/BUSINESS

Wal-Mart takes top spot on Fortune 500 list; GM 3rd

April 17, 2007

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. dethroned Exxon Mobil Corp. to win back first place on the 2007 Fortune 500 list after a confluence of economic forces led American companies to their most profitable year in the compilation's 53-year history.

The big retailer posted a more than 11% increase in revenue to $351.1 billion and profits of $11.3 billion, according to the magazine's annual ranking of the nation's largest companies.

The discounter has topped the list five out of the last six years.

Fortune compiled the rankings based on companies' 2006 revenues.

General Motors Corp. remained ranked third.

A number of Michigan-based companies were among those on a list of companies that lost the most money among the Fortune 500. Ford, the seventh-largest company, lost the most of any company on the Fortune 500 list -- $12.6 billion in revenue.

Twenty-two Michigan-based companies were listed in the Michigan 500.
.

[muntrv]

1. Of course, hardly any of that $11.3 billion will go to the store employees.

[Liberal In Texas]

2. They're doing it without my help. n/t