Arrowhead credit union park

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

IT'S been a year of gains for the 200 largest public companies based in the Los Angeles area. As a group, they posted a 16 percent jump in market capitalization, to $379.1 billion, for the 12 months ended July 7.

Close to three-quarters of the companies reported gains in market capitalization, which is the total value of a firm's outstanding shares and is calculated by multiplying the market price per share (at the close of trading on July 7) by the total number of shares. Showing the biggest gain from a year ago was No. 4, Countrywide Financial Corp., which doubled its market cap since last July, to $19.6 billion, buoyed by gains on loan and securities sales.

No. 2 Disney followed closely, gaining $9.9 billion for a market cap of $51.3 billion.

Mergers, relocation and IPOs caused some changes on the list, with 24 companies rotating in this year. CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. tried its hand as a public company for a second time last month, landing on the list at No. 38. No. 47 Maguire Properties Inc. and No. 48 Molina Healthcare Inc. went public last summer. Both companies have seen gains in market capitalization, up 43 percent and 91 percent, respectively.

THE TRENDS

[GRAPHICS OMITTED]

THE PACESETTER

AMGEN INC.

THE world's largest biotechnology continues its reign as the largest public company on the Business Journal's annual list, but it no longer towers over its peers.

Second place Walt Disney Co. has moved within $20 billion of Amgen, having added close to $10 billion in the past 12 months ended July 7, for $51.3 billion in market capitalization. Last year Amgen was more than twice Disney's size.

Despite strong drug sales, Amgen has shed more a fifth of its market capitalization, with its stock price closing at $53.89 on July 7, compared with $68.91 a year earlier. Analysts have cited Amgen's heavy reliance on three key products for most of its sales as a reason for the decline.

Earlier in the month, Credit Suisse First Boston downgraded Amgen to neutral from outperform, citing "limited financial guidance, potential effects of Medicare reform in key Amgen markets (cancer and dialysis), and competition against its Epogen treatment."

Venture capitalists founded the company in 1980 as AMGen (for Applied Molecular Genetics) and the company went public three years later. With a staff of 12,900 throughout North America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, Amgen develops, manufactures and markets human therapeutic drugs.

The Thousand Oaks-based company actively markets seven drugs, including its first drug Epogen, for treating anemia, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1989.

Amgen received FDA approval in March for its latest drug Sensipar, which helps kidney disease patients on dialysis regulate certain hormones.

Also in March, Amgen signed a definitive agreement to acquire South San Francisco-based Tularik Inc. in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. Completion of the merger is expected by the end of the year.