Altria Group ranks third on Barron’s financial performance list

Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. placed third in a ranking aimed at identifying companies doing the best job of boosting sales and investing for growth.

Altria is the highest ranking of 13 Virginia-based companies on this year’s Barron’s 500 list.  The list, now in its 18th year, ranks large publicly traded companies based on three financial measurements.

The other Virginia companies listed are General Dynamics, Hilton Worldwide, CarMax, Capital One Financial, Northrop Grumman, Markel, Owens & Minor, Performance Food Group, Dollar Tree, WestRock, Dominion Resources, AES, Genworth Financial and Norfolk Southern.

The top ranked company on the list was Valley Forge, Pa.-based AmerisourceBergen, a drug distributor, which was ranked No. 149 last year.

The list was compiled by HOLT, a unit of Credit Suisse. It compared companies’ performance on three equally weighted factors: median three-year cash-flow based return on investment (CFROI), one-year change in CFROI relative to the three-year median and sales growth in the latest fiscal year.

Altria moved up to third this year from No. 196 on last year’s list. The parent company of the cigarette company Philip Morris USA received an “A” in each of the three financial measurements.

The rankings of the other Virginia companies are:

General Dynamics: No. 16, up from  No. 184 last year

Hilton: 50, up from 72

CarMax: 76, up from 140

Capital One: 96, up from 374

Northrop Grumman: 129, up from 437

Markel: 184, not ranked (NR) last year

Owens & Minor: 197, up from 392

Performance Food Group: 212, NR

Dollar Tree: 289, down from 206

WestRock: 387, NR

Dominion Resources: 406, up from 458

AES: 445, down from 250

Genworth: 451, up from 490

Norfolk Southern: 463, down from 370

Besides Altria and AmerisourceBergen, the other companies ranking in the top 10 on the Barron’s list are:

Gilead Sciences (No. 2)

Marriott International (No. 4)

Reynolds American (No. 5)

Wyndham Worldwide (No. 6)

Biogen (No. 7)

Arthur G. Gallagher (No. 8)

S&P Global (No. 9)

Facebook (No. 10)