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Forbes
Features St. Louis companies in its Platinum 400 list
Several companies
headquartered in the St. Louis region made the Forbes Platinum
400 list published in the magazine's January issue.
"The
Forbes Platinum 400 is a list of exceptional big corporations
that pass a stringent set of hurdles measuring both long- and
short-term growth and profitability," the magazine explains. "The
list is made up of time-tested champions, not overnight sensations."
The
St. Louis-area companies named include: Emerson Electric, Sigma
Aldrich, Anheuser-Busch and Express Scripts. Express Scripts was
profiled in a two-page story.
Express
Scripts is a 13-year-old company that manages prescription drug
spending for 137 HMOs, insurers and large employers. According
to the article, the company is the third largest "pharmacy benefit
manager" in the business. Its revenues reached $4 billion last
year.
Above:
Express
Scripts is
one of four St.
Louis-area companies featured
in Forbes
Magazine's Platinum 400
List.
The company's
CEO, Barrett Toan, is described as "something of an anomaly--a
government bureaucrat who turned into a wealthy and successful
entrepreneur." It continues "A Wharton M.B.A., he left a job as
a state welfare administrator in 1985 to start an HMO and then
Express Scripts."
The
article also mentions the company's focus on its on-line pharmacy,
"there's opportunity for growth here," it states.
Forbes
and Financial Times Measure Olin School's M.B.A. Muscle
Washington
University's Olin School of Business was 14th among
national schools--its highest-ever rank in any such survey--in
Forbes magazine's evaluation of full-time M.B.A. programs.
Based
on which programs give students the biggest return on their investment,
the magazine ranked the top 25 national schools and the top 25
regional schools. To calculate the worth on a M.B.A. degree, Forbes
compared salary gains relative to the cost of obtaining them.
Forbes surveyed each school's class of 1994, asking students
to anonymously disclose their compensation the year before beginning
business school, the first year after graduation and four-and-a-half
years later. Costs included two years of tuition and forgone earnings.
The
overall results show that business school is a wise financial
choice for most students. Results for M.B.A. students at the John
M. Olin School of Business were higher than average, taking about
four years to break even. The typical Olin School graduate posted
an M.B.A. gain of $35,000. The top three schools are Harvard University
in Cambridge, Mass; Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; and Stanford
University in Stanford, Calif.
In
the Financial Times' second annual ranking, including 75
full-time M.B.A. programs worldwide, the Olin School ranked 26th,
the highest new entry in the ranking. Among U.S. schools, the
Olin School was number 20.
The
newspaper, based in London, measured performance in categories
covering three broad areas: value and quality of the M.B.A. degree,
and in particular how high a graduate's salary is right out of
college; diversity; and research. The 21 specific criteria used
included value for money, career progress, diversity of faculty
and students, international courses, international mobility of
alumni and research rating.
The
top three schools were Harvard Business School, the Wharton School
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa; and Stanford
University. Top schools outside the United States included the
London Business School in London, England; Insead in Fontainebleau,
France; and the Richard Ivey School at the University of Western
Ontario in London, Ontario in Canada.
ADM's trade
strategy highlighted in Forbes
Archer-Daniels-Midland
is preparing for the day that the Cuban embargo is lifted, according
to a feature story in the February 7 issue of Forbes magazine.
The
article notes that ADM recently had a presence at a Healthcare
Exhibition in Havana "Among the 100 companies like Pfizer and
Eli Lilly that were showing off their wares to local doctors was
a somewhat incongruous visitor -- ADM."
ADM
is a $14 billion (sales) processor of grains, oil seed and soy
products. "Over the past two years," the article states, "the
company has donated 260 metric tons of soy products to Cuba.
In
the article, ADM's Anthony Delio explains their position regarding
Cuba, "It's our belief that in the next year or two trade will
open up," he continues, "the idea is to show them what we're capable
of and to start building a demand for our products.
ADM
executives believe "If the U.S. trade embargos were lifted the
sale of feed grain and bulk food to Cuba could add up to $500
million a year in revenues.
ADM
has other plans as well. In short, their mantra is "build relationships
until the politics are resolved," the article summarizes.
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