Forbes Rates Hunt No. 1 Over Transportation Firms

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell was recently ranked first among transportation companies in Forbes magazine’s annual Platinum List of America’s Best Big Companies.

J.B. Hunt was among six Arkansas firms on the list of 400 public companies, ranked by five-year total return. The list looked across 26 industries to find firms with the best aggregate scores for both long- and short-term financial returns, plus other performance and valuation measures.

Within the transportation category of the listing, J.B. Hunt ranked first in total return over the last 12 months and fourth in 12-month earnings-per-share growth. The company was 80 on the list overall, up from No. 163 last year. It’s J.B. Hunt’s third year on the list.

“Trucking companies tend to run out of gas during a recession,” the magazine wrote. “Not giant J.B. Hunt Transport. Its 11,000 trucks and $2.4 billion in latest 12-months revenue let it ride out bad times — even as lower freight loads, higher fuel prices and soaring insurance costs drove thousands of competitors out of business.”

Other Arkansas companies on the list were trucking company Arkansas Best Corp. of Fort Smith, ranked No. 22 overall; Murphy Oil Corp. of El Dorado (No. 63); retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville (No. 261); telecommunications provider Alltel Corp. of Little Rock (No. 379) and meat processing company Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale (No. 397).

The list appears in the January issue of Forbes and online at www.forbes.com/lists.