O’Reilly Auto moves up on Fortune 500

Springfield-based O’Reilly Automotive Inc. (Nasdaq: ORLY) ranked No. 342 on this year’s Fortune 500, an improvement of 39 spots from its 2015 rank.

Released yesterday, the list ranks the largest U.S. corporations based on revenues. Fortune also released the companies’ profits, number of employees, assets, shareholder equity and market value, among other balance sheet items.

O’Reilly Automotive, which entered the Fortune 500 in 2010, last year posted $8 billion in revenue. The 73,000-employee company posted 2015 profits of $931 million, assets of $6.7 billion, stockholder equity of 2 billion and market value of $26.6 billion.

The Springfield auto parts retailer again ranked sixth among the 10 Missouri companies on the Fortune 500. They are:
    •    No. 22: Express Scripts Holding Co.,
    •    No. 124: Centene Corp.;
    •    No. 128: Emerson Electric Co.;
    •    No. 189: Monsanto Co.;
    •    No. 271: Reinsurance Group of America;
    •    No. 342: O’Reilly Automotive;
    •    No. 382: The Jones Financial Cos.;
    •    No. 423: Graybar Electric Co. Inc.;
    •    No. 425: Ameren Corp.; and
    •    No. 458: Peabody Energy Corp.

With $3.9 billion in revenue, Carthage-based manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc. (NYSE: LEG) improved 22 slots to No. 601 on the Fortune 1000.

On the Fortune 500, O’Reilly Automotive landed in between No. 341 Ball Corp., manufacturer of metal cans and packaging for food and beverage companies, and No. 343 Eversource Energy, a provider of electricity and natural gas.  

The top company on the Fortune 500 was Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for the fourth consecutive year. The Arkansas-based megaretailer posted 2015 revenue of $482.1 billion.

Exxon Mobil retained its No. 2 rank, but Apple Inc. moved to the third slot. The 2015 third-ranked company was Chevron Corp., which fell to 14th this year.