Source: http://worldcityweb.com/home/MIA/publications/magazine/51/874/

(5) Who's Here - South Florida's Global Companies: Part 1

by WC

Multinational Muscle

From their offices in South Florida, 1,183 multinational companies manage combined annual revenues of over $200 billion, more than the GDP of Colombia.

Is South Florida a tourist destination or an international business hub? The answer, of course, is both. But how does the gateway economy stack up against the tourist economy? Thats always been a tough question to answer, largely because the lions share of the gateway economy, like an iceberg, is submerged beneath the service.

While its easy to measure hotel guests or the number of cruise passengers that come to Florida each year, it is not so easy to measure the scope and impact of multinational businesses that come in all shapes and sizes, and manage a diverse set of territories, both in the Americas and beyond, from their South Florida offices.

Since 2000, when we launched our Whos Here directory, WORLDCITY has kept its finger on the pulse of the multinational business community of South Florida. Early on, we incorporated into the directory the number of local employees at these companies, in addition to the total number of employees managed globally from the South Florida offices, as a way of gauging the clout of the many regional headquarters located here.

Now we also have a monetary measure of that clout.

Last September, we began gathering revenue data for the multinational companies, not just revenue booked locally, but the revenue managed by the South Florida offices around the region and, in many cases, around the world.

While data was readily available for publicly traded firms, information was hard to come by for the majority of companies in our directory. After three months of persistent digging, we compiled reliable figures for 728 of the 1,183 companies currently in our Whos Here database. The combined revenue of these companies is $203 billion.

In the pages that follow from page 25 to page 50 are detailed listings for about 600 multinational companies with offices in South Florida. The second half of our multinational
directory will appear in our February issue.

We divided our directory into four categories of companies The Global HQ category includes those that have their global headquarters in South Florida (232). The US/Americas HQ group comprises companies that base their U.S., North America or Americas headquarters in South Florida (158). The Regional HQ category includes those that have some kind regional headquarters, most commonly overseeing Latin America and the Caribbean, in South Florida (420). Finally, the Local Office group in made up of a grab-bag of multinational companies that have an office here that serves either the South Florida market, a statewide Florida market or, in some cases, a broader Southeast U.S. market.

The Global HQ category is the largest of the four at $93 billion. The average revenue for companies with global headquarters in South Florida is $434 million. The Regional HQ category is the second largest slice of the pie at $80 billion. The average revenue for companies with regional headquarters in South Florida is $353 million. For the US/Americas HQ category, the combined revenue is $ 21 billion and the average is $154 million.

Just how big is the grand total of $203 billion?

Its more than double the GDP of Miami-Dade County and it is larger than the GDP of several South American countries. Its larger than the Colombian economy, which the IMF lists at $172 billion and its almost the size of Venezuelas, at $227 billion.

Even so, our figure of $203 billion still underestimates the true collective clout of South Floridas multinational community. Thats because much of the revenue data remains submerged.

We have not yet come up with reliable revenue data for 455 companies, nearly 40 percent of the total. And, in many other cases, the revenue figures that we discovered through secondary sources, such as Hoovers and OneSource, are clearly, often dramatically, underestimated.

Caterpillar Latin America is one such case. Hoovers lists the company at $32 million in annual revenues, when, in fact, the Miami office runs a massive operation throughout Latin America that is well in excess of $1 billion. In this case, we were able to obtain an accurate revenue figure. For many other companies, we were not. As a result, many figures are significantly under- representative of the companies true top-line responsibility.

While still a work in progress, our study revealed many interesting things.

We discovered more than 40 billion-dollar companies in South Florida, a far larger number than more than most people would have imagined. More than half of these companies consist of regional operations of multinationals, such as GM, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, AIG and Danone.

These regional headquarters often fly beneath the radar and go undetected. That may not be the case for long.

South Floridas multinational community impresses not only by the total number of companies and the number of billion-dollar operations, but also by their extraordinary diversity. They hail from 56 different countries.

U.S. multinational companies dominate, with 56 percent of the total. Tied for second place are the U.K. and Spain with 59 companies apiece. In fourth place is France with 46 and Japan with 39, followed by Germany (30), Canada (27), Italy (25), Switzerland (24) and the Netherlands (18).

If we lump the companies together by geographical region, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) is by far the largest source of multinational investment in South Florida, with more than 300 companies with a presence in South Florida. Latin America is next with 116 companies (led by Mexico, with 17; Brazil, with 16; and Venezuela, with 14). As a whole, Asia has a limited presence in South Florida, with only 76 companies.

In the pages that follow, you will find an extraordinary list of companies. They come in all shapes and sizes. The only thing they have in common is that they are multinational companies.

WORLDCITY uses a simple definition for a multinational company. It is any firm with a South Florida office that has a physical presence (i.e. office and dedicated full-time staff) in at least one other country. We make no distinction between small or large companies.

Our multinational database does not consider restaurants or retailers, such as Zara of Spain or Fruits & Passion of Canada, both of which have stores in South Florida, unless like Burger King, Wendys or Birks & Mayors they have corporate offices here. As a general rule, we do not include not-for-profit organizations. We have made an exception, however, for business schools such as Adolfo Ibanez of Chile and ITESM of Mexico which, despite being appendages of non-profit educational institutions, are themselves intensely competitive and often highly profitable.

For a complete list of multinational companies in the “Who’s Here” database with all the details, please go to : http://www.worldcityweb.com/home/MIA/whos_here/