Revenue Jumps for State’s Top Latino Companies

A group of California’s top-grossing Latino companies pulled in $3.1 billion in revenue in 1998--a solid increase over the $2.6 billion posted by the state’s top Latino firms the previous year, according to the June issue of Hispanic Business magazine.

While the 116 California companies on the list of the nation’s 500 top-grossing Latino enterprises outnumbered Florida’s 111, their sales were dwarfed by Florida’s commanding $5.5 billion, much of it stemming from trade with Latin America.

The 15th annual list was drawn from surveys returned to the Santa Barbara-based magazine. Overall, the nationwide showing underscores the growing stature of participating companies. The top-grossing company on this year’s ranking was the first in the list’s history to top $1 billion in annual revenue. A total of 81 companies posted sales greater than $50 million, up from 53 such businesses in 1994.

The growth indicates “a viable pipeline for producing large corporations” in the Latino market, said Joel Russell, the magazine’s senior editor. “The performance of these large companies parallels the strong performance of the U.S. economy [and is] an indication of the mainstreaming of many of these businesses,” he said.

While the list is voluntary and by no means exhaustive, it nevertheless is viewed as a reliable indicator of trends in the Latino business economy.

“It shows that they are becoming serious business,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

Many of the fattest gains came through acquisitions, indicating a new sophistication among Latino businesses, Russell said. The growing number of players in the financial services and telecommunications fields also points to a move away from government contracts and toward lucrative private markets, he said.

The list’s top enterprise, Miami-based MasTec Inc., which builds telecommunications infrastructure, posted a little more than $1 billion in revenue, a $300-million gain over the previous year due in part to an aggressive acquisition strategy. It is the only Latino-controlled corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the magazine. Six other companies on the list are publicly traded elsewhere.

Much of the sales growth for California companies came from another player well-versed in the acquisition game: IFS Financial Corp., sixth on the list with $305 million in revenue. The company moved here from Texas last year to focus on the Latino market and now operates as Pueblo Holdings Corp.

The company in April launched Pueblo Corp., an affinity marketing enterprise that offers cardholders discounts on long-distance phone service, travel, medical and dental plans and other services. The company also has holdings in the mortgage and insurance industries.

“We see the opportunity to target a niche that we haven’t targeted in our prior businesses, which is the Hispanic community,” said CEO Hugo Pimienta. “In our minds, we are much further ahead of [non-Hispanics] because of our tremendous amount of affinity strength.”

Other top Southland firms on the list are Long Beach-based Molina Medical Centers, a health-care services company, in 22nd place with $135 million in 1998 revenue, up from $115 million the previous year. Corona-based Complas Inc., a telecommunications equipment and sales company, bounded into 24th place with $130 million in revenue, up from 30th place and $98.5 million in sales the year before.

Los Angeles-based TELACU, a community development corporation and financial services firm, earned 31st place, down from 28th last year. TELACU saw its revenue hold steady at $100 million.

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Top Latino Businesses

In its June issue, Hispanic Business magazine released its 15th annual list of the nation’s 500 top-grossing Latino enterprises. The companies generated collective revenues of $17.44 billion in 1998. The top 10 companies are:

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Rank Company Headquarters Type of business 1 MasTec Miami Telecomm 2 Burt Automotive Englewood, Colo. Automotive Network 3 Goya Foods Secaucus, N.J. Food 4 Ancira Enterprises San Antonio, Tex. Automotive 5 International Laredo, Tex. Financial services Bancshares 6 IFS Financial Los Angeles Mortgage/insurance 7 Related Group Miami Real estate of Florida development 8 Sedano’s Miami Supermarket Supermarkets chain 9 Troy Ford Troy, Mich. Automotive 10 Lloyd A. Wise Oakland Automotive

‘98 revenue, Rank in millions 1 $1,005.1 2 837.5 3 653.0 4 449.0 5 367.9 6 305.0 7 297.0 8 294.0 9 291.7 10 216.7

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Source: Hispanic Business magazine