The season for lists
One of the first collection assignments I had when I joined the Business department at the Toronto Reference Library, was overseeing the annual reports collection. This collection is arguably one of the best publicly accessible, historic Canadian annual reports collections in Canada. One of the biggest challenges that I encountered was how to determine which companies which were up and coming and would be of interest years down the road to researchers. And likewise, which were fading fast and perhaps would not fit the criteria that we had for this collection.
This time of the year three publications come out that made my job a whole lot easier. They provide a scorecard of the top companies in Canada. Each has a bit of a different take on what is considered "best" or "biggest". For this reason it is good to look at all three.
They are:
Canadian Business magazine's annual Investor 500, includes articles on the market year in review. Seven leading investment managers name 25 of their favorite Canadian stocks for 2011-12. The best turnaround, defensive, managed, cash flow generated, dividend stocks are featured. This list ranks the companies by one year returns and sorts them into large, medium and small market cap categories. It even includes a test to determine your investing IQ! I won't tell you my score.
The National Post's business section, the Financial Post, does listings of the 500 largest companies in Canada. This publication includes the largest foreign controlled companies, the largest employers, largest subsidiaries, largest crown corporations, and top financial institutions.
The Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine lists The top 1000 companies for the year. This special issue also includes the 200 biggest private companies, the 100 biggest companies by revenue, 100 biggest companies by market cap, the 50 biggest employers, the 100 biggest companies by return on equity, as well as industry rankings.
Check out these lists either on-line or in print at your library branch.
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