Dallas Morning News

Eric Torbenson

5/4/2008 - Pinnacle Joins DMN's 100 Top Private Companies

For the first time, Pinnacle Technical Resources is listed by the Dallas Morning News as one of the 100 Top Private Companies in the Dallas area.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/scorecard/stories/DN-scprivatelist_04bus.ART.State.Edition1.46a9870.html

getdoc/20353958-44d8-41ca-af6c-bdedd5ba7721/DMN-Top-100-(2)-Privately-Owned-businesses-2008.aspx

Meet the new king of our Top 100 private companies list: Energy Future Holdings, which readers used to know as Dallas' TXU Corp. The utility shoves aside longtime top dog Neiman Marcus by having nearly twice the annual revenue of the posh retailer.

Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU Corp., posted nearly $8 billion in revenue last year.

The other new face in the Top 10 is Southlake's Sabre Holdings, also leaving a long stint as a public company after a buyout. Beyond that, the first 50 or so on our list are generally the same as before.

The revenue of the top 50 privates this year is $71 billion, compared with $68.4 billion for the top 50 of last year's list, and you'd almost expect a bigger gap, considering that Energy Future Holdings brings nearly $8 billion to the list.

A flood of newcomers in the list's second half appear for a variety of reasons. Some members last year, such as Cinemark, went public in 2007. Others, like UGS, became subsidiaries and dropped out.

But the biggest turnover always comes because companies decline to participate in our survey. They don't have to respond; that's one of luxuries of being privately held. Others, such as law firm Winstead PC and Crossmark Inc., responded to our survey but declined to reveal their revenue. Without that figure or a reliable estimate, we can't rank them.

In some cases, we've used estimates for revenue based on public sources such as Hoover's or trade publications, or a combination of those and reporting by beat reporters who follow those companies.

Because the companies are private, it's hard to verify the revenue figures. The private list isn't all-inclusive by any means. If your company ought to be included, let us know at business news@dallasnews.com.

Eric Torbenson