North Carolina Companies in the Fortune 500

Quick, can you name the 13 companies based in North Carolina on the 2020 Fortune 500 list?

Here are some hints:

One used to be a bank in Italy.

One started as a single hardware store.

One once had a 25-ton computer.

Give up?

The North Carolina representatives on the Fortune 500 list – in order of the rankings – are:

• Bank of America
• Lowe’s
• Honeywell International
• Duke Energy
• Nucor
• Truist Financial
• Laboratory Corp. of America
• IQVIA Holdings
• Sonic Automotive
• Advance Auto Parts
• CommScope Holding
• Hanesbrand
• Brighthouse Financial

The top five overall in the Fortune 500 are Walmart, Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Apple and CVS Health.

For the complete list, go to www.fortune.com/fortune500/2020/search/

Here are some interesting details about the North Carolina contingent...

Bank of America

Rank: 25
Industry: Financial services

Founded: 1998

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $113.5 billion

Employees: 208,000
Website: www.bankofamerica.com

Did you know? 

• Formed via the merger of BankAmerica and NationsBank.
• Digging deeper, the bank’s roots can be traced to 1904, when Amadeo Giannini founded Bank of Italy in San Francisco, The Motley Fool reported. Yes, you read that correctly, Bank of America started as Bank of Italy.
• The bank further established itself as, well, a breed apart when it acquired Merrill Lynch for $50 billion during the 2008 financial crisis.
• Despite the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, CNBC said the bank that month hired more than 2,000 new employees and raised its U.S. minimum hourly wage to $20. 

Lowe’s

Rank: 44
Industry: Retail home improvement

Founded: 1921

Headquarters: Mooresville, NC

Revenue: $72.1 billion

Employees: 300,000
Website: www.lowes.com

Did you know? 

• Lowe’s was founded in North Wilkesboro by Lucius Smith Lowe as a single hardware store.
• The home improvement company now operates more than 2,200 stores.
• Its U.S.-based stores average approximately 112,000 square feet of retail selling space and 32,000 square feet of outdoor garden center selling space, according to businessinsider.com.
• Lowe’s spent $100 million in August 2020 for bonuses for hourly employees facing unforeseen expenses and hardships, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. Approximately 90 percent of those with the company in the U.S. and Canada are hourly employees.

Honeywell International

Rank: 92
Industry: Technology and manufacturing

Founded: 1906

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $36.7 billion

Employees: 113,000
Website: www.honeywell.com

Did you know? 

• The company was founded by Mark Honeywell as Honeywell Heating Specialty Company in Wabash, Indiana.
• Some businesses require sweat equity. This one required Sweatt equity. William Sweatt and his sons, Harold and Charles, provided 75 years of uninterrupted leadership, turning the innovative idea of thermostatic heating control into a thriving business.
• Honeywell entered the computer business via a 1955 joint venture with Raytheon Corp known as Datamatic Corporation, according to the Minnesota Society Manuscripts Collection. The company’s first computer system, the D-1000, weighed 25 tons, took up 6,000 square feet and cost $1.5 million.
• The current company name is the product of a 1999 merger when Honeywell Inc. was acquired by AlliedSignal.
  

Duke Energy

Rank: 123
Industry: Energy

Founded: 1904

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $24.6 billion

Employees: 29,000
Website: www.duke-energy.com/home

Did you know?

• Forbes in 2019 named Duke Energy – under the leadership of company chairman, president and CEO Lynn Good – one of “America’s Best Employers for Women.”
• The company’s origins go back to James B. Duke leading a group that built a system of lakes and dams along the Catawba River to generate electricity that would drive the economic growth of the Piedmont Carolinas.
• The company, according to its website, has 7.7 million electric customers and 1.6 million natural gas customers.

Nucor

Rank: 139
Industry: Steel

Founded: 1940

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $22.5 billion

Employees: 26,800
Website: www.nucor.com

Did you know?

• Nucor is the largest U.S.-based steel producer.
• Leon Topalian was named president and chief operating officer in 2019 following the retirement of chairman and chief executive John Ferriola, the Charlotte Observer reported.
• The name Nucor Corporation was adopted in 1972 to replace Nuclear Corporation of America.
• The company origins trace back to Ransom Eli Olds, who manufactured Oldsmobiles. Olds formed the REO Motor Car Company, which produced a commercial truck known as the REO Speedwagon. Yes, that vehicle inspired the name of the 1970s rock group REO Speedwagon.

Truist Financial

Rank: 217
Industry: Financial services

Founded: 2019

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $14.6 billion

Employees: 59,000
Website: www.truist.com

Did you know?

• BB&T and SunTrust merged to form the sixth-largest U.S. bank holding company.
• The bank’s new name after the merger was selected from “thousands of choices” reviewed by bank employees and clients, along with the assistance of global marketing firm Interbrand, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
• BB&T, short for Branch Banking and Trust, was founded in 1872. SunTrust’s name came from the 1985 merger of Trust Co. of Georgia – founded in 1891 – and SunBanks, based in Florida.
• As a precaution due to COVID-19, more than half the company employees are working from home until at least January 2021.

Laboratory Corporation of America

Rank: 274
Industry: Health care

Founded: 1978

Headquarters: Burlington, NC

Revenue: $11.5 billion

Employees: 65,000

Website: www.labcorp.com

Did you know?

• LabCorp was founded as Roche BioMedical and operated under that name until it merged with National Health Laboratory in 1995.
• In 2000, the company had 18,000 employees and $1.9 billion in revenue.
• In August 2020, LabCorp announced a new program offering a free antibody test for three months to increase blood plasma donations to aid in the fight against COVID-19. The company started extending the Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-Cov-2 test at no charge to patients already receiving a medically necessary exam, blood test or treatment from a health care provider.

IQVIA Holdings

Rank: 290
Industry: Health information and clinical research

Founded: 1982

Headquarters: Durham, NC

Revenue: $11 billion

Employees: 67,000
Website: www.iqvia.com

Did you know? 

• IQVIA offers clinical development strategies, laboratory, site selection, patient recruitment, and research and development management consulting services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health care industries, according to Bloomberg.com.
• The company, working separately as Quintiles and IMS Health Inc. until 2016, made the 2019 Forbes list of The Best Employers for Women.
• According to the Wall Street Journal, CEO Ari Bousbib in 2017 made $38 million – more than the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson.

Sonic Automotive

Rank: 301
Industry: Automotive

Founded: 1997

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $10.4 billion

Employees: 9,750
Website: www.sonicautomotive.com

Did you know? 

• Bruton Smith, the company’s founder and executive chairman, is also the executive chairman and a director of Speedway Motorsports.
• Scott Smith, Bruton’s son, served as chief executive officer until 2018, when he stepped down to spend more time with his family, according to the Charlotte Observer.
• Speaking of family, Scott Smith’s younger brother, David Smith, succeeded him as CEO.
• In July 2020, the new-car dealership chain unveiled an ambitious game plan for its EchoPark brand of stand-alone used-car dealerships, Forbes.com reported. Sonic planned to open 140 more EchoPark locations nationwide by 2025 – after having 10 total in 2020.

Advance Auto Parts

Rank: 330
Industry: Retail auto parts

Founded: 1932

Headquarters: Raleigh, NC

Revenue: $9.7 billion

Employees: 40,000
Website: https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/

Did you know? 

• The company’s headquarters relocated from Roanoke, Virginia in 2018.
• Advance Auto Parts is made up of many parts. Arthur Taubman purchased the Advance Stores from Pep Boys in 1932. In 2001, the company acquired Carport Auto Parts. That same year, the company acquired Discount Auto Parts Inc. In 2002, Advance acquired Trak Auto stores. In 2013, the company acquired General Parts International.
• Frito-Lay North America CEO Tom Greco took over as Advance Auto Parts CEO in 2016.

CommScope Holding

Rank: 381
Industry: Telecommunications

Founded: 1976

Headquarters: Hickory, NC

Revenue: $8.3 billion

Employees: 30,000
Website: www.commscope.com

Did you know? 

• In 1990, CommScope opened a new manufacturing facility in Claremont to answer the demand for copper telephone wiring, television cables and personal computer cables.
• CommScope in 1997 spun off from General Instrument.
• In 2000, the Hickory global headquarters opened.
• The company doubled in size in 2004 after acquiring Avaya’s Connectivity Solutions and again in 2007 following the acquisition of Andrew Corporation, a global wireless provider.
  

Hanesbrands

Rank: 436
Industry: Clothing manufacturer

Founded: 2006

Headquarters: Winston-Salem, NC

Revenue: $6.9 billion

Employees: 63,000
Website: www.hanes.com/corporate

Did you know? 

• The company was spun off by the Sara Lee Corporation. … In addition to Hanes, Hanesbrands owns the clothing brands Champion, L’eggs, Playtex and Wonderbra.
• Hanesbrands shifted from underwear to “overwear” in 2020, selling $752 million worth of face masks and medical gowns in a three-month period, according to marketwatch.com. The company now sells face masks under its Hanes, Champion, Bonds and Dim brands.
• Hanesbrands celebrated a 30-year partnership with celebrity spokesperson Michael Jordan by including a pack of Jordan trading cards in 800,000 bonus packs of Hanes underwear, businesswire.com reported. Ten cards were autographed by Jordan.
  

Brighthouse Financial

Rank: 457
Industry: Insurance

Founded: 2016

Headquarters: Charlotte, NC

Revenue: $6.5 billion

Employees: 1,330
Website: www.brighthousefinancial.com

Did you know?

• Brighthouse is one of the largest providers of annuities and life insurance in the U.S. with $224 billion in total assets, according to the company website.
• The company traces its roots back to Travelers Insurance Company, founded in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1863.
• The company was MetLife Inc. when it relocated its U.S. retail business to Charlotte in 2013.
• In 2017, Brighthouse completed its separation from MetLife and began selling annuities and life insurance under its own brand.