TOP 100: Colorado-based public companies.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: [PRIVATE EQUITIES SNAG FIRST DATA, ARCHSTONE]

First Data Corp, and Archstone-Smith Trust were perennially two of the top public companies in Colorado. Then private equity firms swooped in and acquired the two companies in separate deals last year, which is why you won't find either of them on this year's Top 100 Public Companies ranking that appears on the following pages.

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First Data Corp., which employs about 2,000 people in Colorado and was ranked No. 4 on the ColoradoBiz Public Companies list last year, was acquired by private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for $26 billion. The deal for the Greenwood Village-based payment processing company was announced in April 2007 and completed five months later.

Archstone-Smith, a real estate investment trust specializing in apartments, accepted a buyout offer of $22.2 billion from Tishman Speyer-Lehman in May. The transaction was finalized in October 2007. Englewood-based Archstone ranked No. 19 on last year's ColoradoBiz public companies list.

In another Colorado public-company development, EchoStar Communications Corp. changed its name to DISH Network Corp. (DISH was already its ticker symbol) in January and spun off EchoStar Corp. as a separate company with the ticker SATS.

EchoStar develops and distributes digital set-top boxes, while DISH provides satellite TV services. The two Englewood companies operate independently, although Charlie Ergen is the chairman and CEO of both.

DISH ranks No. 2 on this year's list, trailing only Qwest Communications International, with sales of more than $11 billion. EchoStar, the spinoff, ranks 15th with sales in excess of $1.5 billion.

2005 COMPANY TICKER '07 '07 SALES '06 SALES % RANK RANK (000'S) (000'S) GROWTH 1 Qwest Q 1 $13,778,000 $13,923,000 -1.04% Communications International Inc. 2 Dish Network DISH 2 11,090,375 9,818,486 12.95% Corp. (Formerly Echostar Communications Corp. 3 Liberty Media LCAPA 3 9,423,000 8,613,000 9.40% Corp. 4 Liberty Global LBTYA 6 9,003,300 6,487,500 38.78% Inc. 5 Ball Corp. BLL 5 7,475,300 6,621,500 12.89% 6 Prologis Trust PLD 13 6,204,666 2,463,909 151.82% 7 Molson Coors TAP 7 6,190,592 5,845,000 5.91% Brewing Co. 8 Newmont Mining NEM 8 5,526,000 4,987,000 10.81% Corp. 9 Western Union WU 10 4,900,200 4,470,200 9.62% Co. 10 Level 3 LVLT 11 4,269,000 3,378,000 26.38% Communications Inc. 11 UAP Holdings UAPH 12 3,411,416 2,727,789 25.06% Corp. 12 MDC Holdings MDC 9 2,933,249 4,801,742 -38.91% Inc. 13 Emergency EMS 14 2,106,993 1,934,205 8.93% Medical Services Corp 14 Apartment AIV 15 1,721,184 1,690,994 1.79% Investment & Management Co. 15 Echostar Corp. SATS 1,544,065 1,525,320 1.23% 16 Cimarex Energy XEC 16 1,431,166 1,267,144 12.94% Co. 17 Teletech TTEC 1,211,297 1,086,673 11.47% Holdings Inc. 18 Frontier FRNT 22 1,170,900 994,273 17.76%...