mining group, which posted a return of 13 percent in 1974 and has now been the leader in profit margins for twelve consecutive years, slipped a bit, to 12.3 percent. Texasgulf led the list for the second year in a row with a margin of 23.2 percent. The median return on stockholders' equity fell two percentage points, to 11.6 percent. Broadcasting and motion pictures, with a return of 19.4 percent, edged past mining and led the list. Lockheed Aircraft had the highest return on equity of any company, 60.2 percent. A major reason for Lockheed's leadership in this category is the fact that its equity base is so small in relation to the company's volume of business. The base was shrunk by those heavy losses on the C-5 and TriStar programs. More than 90 percent of the 500 posted gains in total return to investors during 1975. The broadcasting and motion-picture group proved especially popular with investors and registered a median total return of 107.78 percent. American Bakeries topped all other companies with a spectacular 251.34 percent return. The list of leaders also included a host of apparel and textile companies Blue Bell (211.61 percent), Levi Strauss (210.51 percent), Collins & Aikman (176.43 percent). Nashua, which makes computer disc packs and paper for office copiers, did worst. Its total return: minus 34.41 percent. Last year's bull market also lifted total-return figures for the decade. After the bear markets of 1973 and 1974, the median return for the 1964-74 decade was down to 1.83 percent. The median for 1965-75 is back up to 3.08 percent, Fleetwood Enterprises, a manufacturer of mobile homes, had the best record for the decade, an average annual return of 43.05 percent. The 500 trimmed its work force by 5.9 percent, or nearly a million employees. The four largest employersGeneral Motors, Ford, International Telephone & Telegraph, and General Electric-accounted for about a fifth of that drop all by themselves. Median sales per employee rose 8.7 percent. Assets grew to $668 billion, a figure representing a gain of only 6.1 percent over the previous year. The total stockholders' equity of the 500 did not do much better, increasing by only 7.2 percent to $331 billion. This year, for the first time, the directory of the 500. largest industrials includes industry code numbers. The numbers indicate which individual line of business accounts for the greatest volume of each company's industrial sales. Among the twenty-eight industry groups represented on the list, petroleum refining had the highest volume of sales ($200.5 billion). The food in iustry had the most companies-a total of seventy-one. -SUSIE GHARIB NAZEM |