Top Money

What the Indianapolis 500 means to U.S. auto racing, FORTUNE'S 500 means to U.S. industry. Last week the magazine's tenth annual rating of the nation's leading corporations showed that American business really went off to the races in 1963.

Profits of the 500 biggest industrial firms jumped more than 10% to $14.8 billion, accounting for 55% of the 1963 earnings of all 1,200,000 U.S. corporations. The two largest firms brought home more than one-sixth of the 500's earnings: General Motors earned $1.6 billion on sales of $16.5 billion, and Standard Oil (N.J.) became the only other U.S. manufacturer to join the billionaires' circle by earning $1.02 billion on sales of $10.3 billion.*

The same six companies led the sales list as in the previous two years. After G.M. and Jersey Standard came Ford with $8.7 billion, General Electric $4.9 billion, Socony Mobil $4.4 billion, U.S. Steel $3.6 billion. Chrysler, the only newcomer to the top ten, sped from twelfth place to seventh as sales increased from $2.4 billion to $3.5 billion. The laggard among the leaders was Swift, off from tenth to twelfth on a slight sales decline.

Several of the also-rans did impressively well. The fastest sales increases were made by American Petrofina, up 114.8%, and by Iowa Beef Packers, whose 114.6% gain was due largely to increased capacity. Amerada Petroleum, in 355th place, had the highest profit margin for the sixth consecutive year--30.2% of sales--thanks largely to its low overhead. When it came to return on invested capital, Avon led with 34.3%, followed closely by Gillette's 34.1%, General Dynamics 32.2%, Smith Kline & French's 30.9% . On the average, the 500 earned better than 6% on sales and 9% on invested capital, both slightly higher than in 1962.

*The world's biggest company in terms of assets, American Telephone & Telegraph, is not in this industrial group, will be listed in next month's directory of the 50 leading utilities. Last year it earned $1.5 billion on sales of $10 billion.

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