Creating the IW US 500

IndustryWeek partnered with Mergent Inc. to create the 2015 IW U.S. 500 ranking of the largest (based on revenue) publicly held manufacturing companies headquartered in the United States. Mergent acquired the Financial Services Division of Moody's Investors Service in 1998. The organization has been collecting and delivering financial information for more than 100 years. IndustryWeek's relationship with Mergent/Moody's dates back to 1996. Led by Mergent's Director of Equity Research Ricardo Angel, the firm's global databases were used to identify all publicly held manufacturing companies meeting IW's selection criteria. In addition to the team at Mergent, Erik Fine, a Charlotte, N.C.-based information consultant involved in the IW 500 since its inception, oversaw the analysis and data-collection effort. Mergent collected the financial data elements directly from reports distributed by the corporations.