Thirteen companies based in the greater D.C. metropolitan region made the Fortune 500 rankings for businesses for 2007.
The annual list included seven companies from Northern Virginia, four from Beltway-area Maryland and two from D.C. itself. The state of Virginia overall boasted 17 companies in the 500; Maryland had six.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the highest-ranking area company, listed at 50. The company was not included in the 2006 rankings because it delayed the release of its financial reports.
Reston-based Sprint Nextel bumped up a few spots to 53, the second-highest ranking for a D.C. company.
The increase was more relative to other companies’ results, spokesman James Fisher said, since the company actually got smaller because it spun off its local telecommunications division into a separate company in 2006.
“We’re proud to be one of America’s largest corporations to work for, and proud of the work we do,” Fisher said.
New to the list was Bethesda-based Host Hotels & Resorts, which finished at 452, compared with last year’s rank of 502. The company’s position went up because of its acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, spokesman Kevin Jacobs said Tuesday.
Host Hotels was pleased to make the top 500, but Jacobs said the company took more pride in making the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year, which focuses on more factors than size.
Missing from this year’s list was Arlington-based utility company AES, which ranked 221 last year. The troubled company announced in February it would restate its financial statements this year after discovering errors and faces de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange.
The D.C.-area Fortune 500 companies reported revenues ranging from $5 billion to $44 billion.
Topping the list nationally this year was Wal-Mart, a $351 billion company, which was surpassed last year by Exxon Mobil.
