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* Consider it a snapshot in time: a picture of South Florida's economy at the end of 2002. The South Florida 500 looks at the area's largest locally based public companies and private companies, as well as our largest employers, many of whom are based elsewhere. While South Florida's business world is in constant flux--several companies on our list this year have moved out of state or merged in 2003--in many ways it remains consistent from year to year. On each of our three lists, last year's top companies held their spots: AutoNation, No. 1 on our Top Public Companies list; JM Family Enterprises, No. 1 on our Top Private Companies list; and Publix Super Markets, No. 1 on our Top Employers list. Each of these companies, however, shrank in its category. Revenues at both JM and AutoNation were down 3 percent in 2002, and Publix had nearly 300 fewer FTE (full-time equivalent) employees tri-county in 2002.

In terms of eligibility, our methodology keeps the field of qualifying companies narrow for our two revenues-based lists. For the Top Private Companies and the Top Public Companies, the businesses had to have their corporate headquarters in the tri-county area as of year-end 2002. No subsidiaries of other companies were eligible--thus eliminating firms such as Precision Response Corp., which is owned by New York-based InterActive Corp (formerly USA Interactive). The Top Employers list encompasses a broader range of companies: no matter where the firm is based, we include those with 500 or more full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in 2002 in the tri-county area. Using FTEs instead of total employee numbers puts companies that have mostly full-time, 40 (or more) hour-per-week workers on even footing with companies such as Winn Dixie Stores, which has more part-time workers than full-time ones.

To assemble the South Florida 500, we combined thousands of surveys with exhaustive research. Much of our data came from the companies themselves. At times, though, we estimated revenues or local employees, as indicated by our footnotes.