17 Minnesota Companies Are Now on the Fortune 500 List
The new list is out and 17 of the top 500 companies in the country are headquartered right here in Minnesota this year. And that list includes some familiar Minnesota names.
Fortune is a business magazine and website that's been ranking companies in the U.S. according to their revenue for a while now. It's quite an achievement to land on their top 500 list. In addition to bragging rights, it means your business can call itself a 'Fortune 500 company.' And now 17 firms here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes can make that claim this year.
Fortune said that the top 500 companies on its list in 2024 provided jobs for 31 million workers overall, and generated a jaw-dropping $18.8 TRILLION revenue this year. (Yes, that's trillion, with a 't'!)
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Here in the North Star State, United Health Group is once again the highest-ranking company on the 2024 Fortune 500 list, coming in at #4 this year, up one spot from 2023 Fortune says they have 400,000 employees and generated $371 billion in revenue last year.
Here's the full list of Minnesota companies on the 2024 Fortune 500 List and where they rank this year compared to 2023:
+ 4: UnitedHealth Group (up from 5th last year)
+ 37: Target (down from 33rd last year)
+ 97: CHS (down from 90th last year)
+ 100: Best Buy (down from 94th last year)
+ 107: U.S. Bancorp (up from 149th last year)
+ 134: 3M (up from 116th last year)
+ 203: General Mills (up from 219th last year)
+ 233: C.H. Robinson (down from 160th last year)
+ 245: Land O'Lakes (down from 213th last year)
+ 254: Ameriprise Financial (up from 289th last year)
+ 269: Ecolab (up from 293rd last year)
+ 302: Xcel Energy (down from 271st last year)
+ 343 Hormel Foods (down from 330th last year)
+ 405: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (up from 412th last year)
+ 431: Polaris (down from 424th last year)
+ 462: Securian Financial Group (up from 567th last year)
+ 488: Fastenal (up from 525th last year)
If you're curious why Minnesota's largest company, Cargill, doesn't appear on the list this year, it's because Cargill is a privately held company, which Fortune doesn't include in its rankings.
And here's what that means, according to Investopedia:
A private company is usually owned by the company's founders, management, or a group of private investors. A public company is a company that has sold all or a portion of itself to the public via an initial public offering.
So even though Forbes notes that Cargill isn't just the largest privately-held company in Minnesota-- it's also the largest in the entire U.S.-- it isn't included in the Fortune 500 list. Private companies like Cargill are responsible for creating some of the richest families in the country. Keep scrolling to see who they are!
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