| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Just announced: the Reputation Institute's 2009 U.S. Reputation Pulse list, which ranks corporate reputations of top U.S. companies. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) topped the list this year, beating last year's winner Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), which fell to eighth place. Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT), United Parcel Services Inc. (NYSE:UPS), General Mills Inc. (NYSE:GIS) and FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX) rounded out the top five.The company experiencing the biggest movement: American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG). The poster child for bailout money fell to second to last on the bottom of the list. The Reputation Institute put a virtual asterisk on the financial services industry, noting "With mergers, bankruptcies and bail-outs, financial industries suffered the most with volatility in the composition of the list and the greatest individual company changes in reputation." So what industries had a good year, reputation-wise, given where the economy has been the past 12 months? Consumer products, transportation and logistics, industrial products, and computers were the best-ranked sectors, according to the report. The Reputation Pulse rankings are based on consumers' trust and good feeling about a company across seven dimensions of reputation: products/services, innovation, governance, workplace, citizenship, leadership and performance. So how active were these companies on the dealmaking front in the past year? Here is a breakdown of the top winners, along with notable deal activity as detailed in The Deal's Pipeline: 1) Johnson & Johnson Score = 83.58 Notable deal activity: - Bid for Stiefel Laboratories Inc. in March 2009. Lost out to GlaxoSmithKline plc, which bought Stiefel for $3.6 billion in cash and debt. - Acquired a group of French female hygiene and cosmetics companies, including Vania Expansion SNC and Laboratoires Polive SNC in February 2009. 2) Kraft Foods Score = 81.09 Notable deal activity: - In August 2008, Kraft Foods sold its Maarud, Estrella and Taffel snacks brands to Herkules Private Equity Fund for an undisclosed price. 3) UPS Score = 80.86 Notable deal activity: - Was in talks to buy Dutch rival TNT NV in August 2008. 4) General Mills Score = 80.80 Notable deal activity: - Sold its Pop Secret microwave popcorn business to Diamond Foods Inc. in a cash deal valued at about $190 million, in August 2008. 5) FedEx Score = 80.30 Notable deal activity: - As of March 2009, FedEx is still a rumored bidder for Royal Mail Group. - Tom Groppe
 Deal Video
    Community
 Elsewhere on The Deal.comDealwatchThe Deal MagazineCorporate Dealmaker
The Deal VideoCategories
Blog roll
Archives
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
©Copyright 2009, The Deal, LLC. All rights reserved. Please send all technical questions, comments or concerns to the Webmaster.
