Colorado's top 100 public companies completed Qwest deal one of many moves involving ranked firms.

• Position: Company rankings

The completed acquisition of Qwest Communications by Louisiana-based CenturyLink was the biggest development involving Colorado public companies in an unusually active year for the state's publicly traded firms.

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The $22 billion Qwest-CenturyLink merger was completed in April, a year after the deal was announced. Although the company headquarters will be CenturyLink's Monroe, La. base, the reconfigured company's Business Markets Group will be headquartered in Denver.

Qwest had long been Colorado's top public company from a revenue standpoint, but in 2010 it was supplanted by DISH Network, the Englewood-based TV service provider. DISH had revenues of $12.6 billion in 2010, an 8 percent gain over the previous year, compared to Qwest's sales of $11.7 billion representing a 5 percent drop.

Another Colorado public company changed hands under less favorable terms. Denver-based United Western Bancorp, No. 69 in last year's ranking, was seized by the Office of Thrift Supervision in January, one of 329 banks closed by regulators since 2008. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. immediately sold the bank's $1.65 billion worth of assets to First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. of Raleigh. N.C.

Other developments:

Last year's No. 63, Health Grades Inc., a provider of health-care quality and patient safety information based in Golden, was acquired in 2010 by Vestar Capital Partners and taken private.

VCG Holding Corp., a Lake wood-based purveyor of adult entertainment nightclubs with revenues of $55.3 million in 2010 and ranked No. 71 on this year's list, announced plans in November to buy back shares of common stock and take the company private.

TOP 100 COLORADO-BASED PUBLIC COMPANIES Ranked by revenue 2011 Company Ticker '10 '10 Sales '09 Sales Rank Rank (000's) (000's) 1 Dish Network Corp. DISH 2 $12,640,744 $11,664,151 2 Qwest Communications Q 1 11,730,000 12,311,000 International Inc. 3 Newmont Mining Corp. NEM 5 9,540,000 7,705,000 4 Liberty Global Inc. LBTYA 3 9,016,900 7,497,400 5 Ball Corp. BLL 6 7,630,000 7,345,300 6 DaVita Inc. DVA 6,447,391 6,108,800 7 Western Union Co. WU 7 5,192,700 5,083,600 8 Level 3 LVLT 8 3,651,000 3,762,000 Communications Inc. 9 Molson Coors Brewing TAP 9 3,254,400 3,032,400 Co. 10 Emergency Medical EMS 10 2,859,322 2,569,685 Services Corp 11 EchoStar Corp. SATS 11 2,350,369 1,903,559 12 QEP Resources Inc. QEP 2,246,400 1,972,500 13 Chipotle Mexican CMG 12 1,835,922 1,518,417 Grill Inc. 14 Cimarex Energy Co. XEC 19 1,613,683 1,009,794 15 Whiting Petroleum WLL 20 1,490,901 979,360 Corp. 16 Woodward Inc. WWD 13 1,457,030 1,430,125 17 TW Telecom Inc. TWTC 15 1,273,171 1,211,390 18 DCP Midstream DPM 23 1,269,500 942,400 Partners LP 19 MarkWest Energy MWE 29 1,187,631 738,283 Partners LP 20 Apartment Investment AIV 16 1,144,934 1,195,763 & Management Co. 21 Liberty Media Corp. LCAPA 4 1,098,200 10,158,000 22 Teletech Holdings TTEC 17 1,094,906 1,167,915 Inc. 23 SM Energy Co. SM 26 1,092,834 832,201 24 IHS Inc. IHS 22 1,075,460 967,300 25 Ciber Inc. CBR 18 1,071,343 1,037,700 26 Janus Capital Group JNS 27 1,015,700 774,700 27 MDC Holdings Inc. MDC 24 958,655 898,303 28 ProLogis PLD 14 909,155 1,223,082 29 Vail Resorts Inc. MTN 21 868,632 976,988 30 Red Robin Gourmet RRGB 25 864,269 841,045 Burgers Inc. 31 Forest Oil Corp. FST 28 854,751 768,455 32 Crocs Inc. CROX 31 789,695 645,767 33 Berry Petroleum Co. BRY 698,502 560,229 34 Bill Barrett Corp. BBG 30 698,464 652,730 35 UDR Inc. UDR 32 646,596 617,173 36 Thompson Creek Metals TC...