Video Analysis From Hoover's Editors
Investment Firms
The Blackstone Group, L.P.
Blackstone's dominant performance on the Hoover's Index month after month reveals a fundamental shift in how the business world regards the private equity firm. A company that keeps showing up near the top of the Index month after month doesn't get there solely because of heavy search activity. Because of the way the Index is calculated, the company has to keep beating its average search activity by a mile, even as that average continues to rise. Blackstone was making noise in the second half of 2006 with a variety of leveraged buyouts. Then came its bidding war against Vornado for the right to buy Equity Office Properties. And then . . . Blackstone's IPO, which dominated the financial news in late June. The short version: Blackstone has gone from being prominent in its own niche industry to being one of the business world's rock stars.
Storage & Systems Management Software
VMware
Though it lacked the marquee appeal of the Blackstone IPO, VMware rode high throughout May (when it ranked 15th on the Index) and June thanks to its own announcement that it would make a $100 million public offering -- equivalent to 10% of the company. Since then, the software company has punched above its weight in commanding the attention of Hoover's users. Credit where it's due, though: VMware, which was founded in 1998, is a heavyweight in the field of virtualization software, and it brought in more than $700 million in revenue in 2006. VMware's wares allow network administrators to spread computer functions across multiple systems or servers so that the various machines act as one. This allows big users of computing power to lower operating costs, since they need less hardware to carry out the same computing tasks. Storage powerhouse EMC has owned VMware since 2004.
Internet Content Providers
In the world of Internet business, networking hub Facebook is the "It Company" of the moment. It seems like you can't turn around without stumbling across the smiling mug of its young CEO/founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on the cover of a business magazine. Why? The 23-year-old Zuckerberg has garnered lots of attention for turning down a rumored $1 billion buyout offer from
Commercial & Heavy Construction
Washington Group International
This Washington does not usually go for a job as small as cutting down a single cherry tree; it would, however, be happy to build you a nuclear power plant. Even after two stints in bankruptcy, Washington Group International remains one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms. The company, once known as Morrison Knudsen, tackles big jobs: think bridges, highways, factories, pipelines, railroads . . . and nuclear plants. Washington Group also makes a specialty of remediation and decommissioning nuclear facilities, and it rates as one of the top international environmental engineering firms. Now engineering giant URS Corporation is set to buy the company for $2.6 billion; Washington Group should win URS an important position in the nuclear business, which has been surging in the face of sustained high prices for fossil fuels.
Retail Brokerages
A.G. Edwards
Why build a brokerage when you can buy one? That seems to be what's driving Wachovia in its $6.8 billion acquisition of A.G. Edwards, one of the oldest and largest retail brokerages around. Wachovia has been on a tear lately, snapping up a string of banks and other financial services companies. The biggest deal of the bunch was its 2006 purchase of Golden West Financial, which cost more than $25 billion. The A.G. Edwards purchase will help Wachovia compete with Merrill Lynch and Citigroup as one of the top brokerage businesses in the US.