The Top 50

Shakeups Re-Shape Our Annual Top 50

We’ve been putting this list together since 1978 and in all that time, Procter & Gamble has been No. 1 on our list. Good, old reliable P&G. The casual reader might think not-too-much changes year-after-year with The Top 50 and, by extension, the US household and personal products industry. Not so, not by a long shot.

Nearly every year brings at least one major acquisition that knocks a company from the ranks of independent corporation and that has our team scrambling to figure out how we can refill our list. Or, brands switch sides and a company that was once, say, near the bottom of our rankings, suddenly leapfrogs over a half-dozen or so competitors.

Moves like these happen every year, of course, but the past year has been particularly volatile. For example, long-time companies on our list like Dermalogica and Murad are no longer independent; both were scooped up by Unilever, the largest company in our industry with headquarters outside the US (more on that later). Then there’s the curious case of Avon, which was split in two in an effort to turn around its fortunes and appease investors after several years of declining sales in key markets. The Top 50 also has several name changes with companies such as Energizer going by Edgewell. Blyth was acquired by The Carlyle Group and has been renamed Luminex. As a result, The Top 50 has been repopulated with new names such as Rodan + Fields, Sundial and The Honest Company. Meanwhile, familiar names such as Coty are expected to  climb our list now that a bevy of brands from Procter & Gamble are finding their way into the Coty franchise.

The shuffling continues even as we go to press. Just last month, for example, Revlon announced it would purchase Elizabeth Arden for nearly $900 million. As the rest of 2016 unfolds and 2017 gets underway, you can be sure that shakeups will impact The Top 50 next year and for years to come.

That said, The Top 50 really only represents half of the story of what’s happened in the global household and personal products industry during the past year or so. To get the complete picture, be sure to read The International Top 30, our annual look at the leading companies with headquarters outside the US, which will be published next month.