What is the life expectancy of a company on the S&P 500 list now to 1965?
There are 49 companies on the 2022 Fortune 500 List that were on the original 1955 List or 9.8%.
In 2014 there were 61 on the original 500 list or 12.2%. The source is here.
Where do they go – bankrupt, merged or still exist but don’t make the list because revenues dropped. The 500 list is ranked by revenues.
As reported here, the life expectancy of a company on the S&P 500 Index in 1965 was 32 years. In 2020 that expectancy dropped to 21 years. The trend is expected to continue to 17 years by 2030.
Built to last companies are more difficult to find. From the original built to last list by Jim Collins – 17 of the 18 remain. Seven of the 18 began in the 1800’s. What have the leaders at these companies done differently? Motorola, on the original list, operates under another name, Motorola Solutions, that succeeded Motorola from its spin off in 2011.
Is your company built to last? Will your company’s life expectancy exceed the trend of the S&P 500?
While some see the shift in the original 500 list as a positive because market driven, the employees of the companies, shareholders, vendors might express a different opinion. They may ask, why didn’t the leaders of my employer chart a different course?
What does it take to be built to last? Will your company go beyond the projected life expectancy for the S&P 500 companies of 17 years by 2030? Can you know? What actions are necessary? A topic for a discussion – contact Innovation Advantage LLC to understand your options.
Here are the 49 companies in the 2022 Fortune 500 List that were on the 1955 List.
| 3M | Abbott Laboratories | Alcoa |
| Altria Group | Boeing | Borg Warner |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | Campbell Soup | Caterpillar |
| Celanese | Coca-Cola | Colgate-Palmolive |
| Conoco Phillips | Corning | Crown Holdings |
| Cummins | Dana | Deere |
| DuPont | Eli Lilly | Exxon Mobil |
| General Dynamics | General Electric | General Mills |
| General Motors | Goodyear Tire & Rubber | Hormel Foods |
| International Paper | Johnson & Johnson | Kellogg |
| Kimberly Clark | Kraft | Lear |
| Lockheed Martin | Merck | NCR |
| Northrop Grumman | Olin | Owen Corning |
| Paccar | PepsiCo | Pfizer |
| PPG Industry | Raytheon | Rockwell Automation |
| Textron | Westinghouse Air Brake | Weyerhaeuser |
| Whirlpool |