A Look Behind the Metrics

Once again, we have carried over our universe of companies, with some modification, for our annual rankings based upon our traditional criteria: the companies must be publicly listed corporations, the companies’ major income must come from shipping or other marine operations and the companies must provide audited or at least publicly issued financial information for the year 2005.

We made the decision this year to focus the Rankings on a core universe of commodity and offshore shipping. We dropped the offshore rig and construction companies and the occasional shipyard so that we could better have an apples to apples universe. Particularly in light of the astronomic rise in oil prices, we felt that the inclusion of companies whose revenues are based on such non-shipping factors would have the effect of obscuring the overall data. In addition to this, we have lost some companies to merger and acquisition activity (P&O, CP Ships and Seabulk) and added the IPO class of 2004. All told the universe now comprises 66 companies, down from 74 last year but growing very rapidly.

This is only an excerpt of A Look Behind the Metrics

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