Whatever happened to ....

• Author: Bailey, David
• Position: North Carolina's top companies

Cone Mills, Blue Bell and McDevitt & Street? For many reasons, the ranking has seen companies come and go.

In 1984, the year that Arthur Andersen & Co. and BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA launched the North Carolina 100, the managers of publicly traded Cone Mills Inc. decided it was worth borrowing $465 million to become a private company. The Greensboro-based denim manufacturer did so to thwart a hostile takeover.

Over the eight years that Cone was on the North Carolina 100 -- 1985 to 1992 -- the company ranked first, second or third on the list as it slowly paid down the massive debt that it, like a lot of other companies, took on when leveraged buyouts were the rage. Then, with the stock market booming in 1992, Cone went public in a $60 million offering and exited the North Carolina 100.

Being private obviously has its advantages, but like marriage, it needn't be a permanent condition -- though there are some in both matrimony and business that don't see it that way.

The 23 companies that have been on the North Carolina 100 since its inception seem committed to the advantages of private ownership. But others, like Cone, see being private as a matter of convenience. That's one of the reasons that over the life of the list 234 companies have, at one time or another, been able to call themselves a member of the North Carolina 100.

On the 10th anniversary of the list, Mike Henderson, Arthur Andersen's partner in charge of the Carolinas' family-wealth-planning practice, says one reason so many companies have come and gone is the volatility that's characterized the marketplace from 1984 to 1994. "You think about what happened during that time span: Major consolidation, competitive pressures have ratcheted up several notches, and very fundamental changes have occurred in customer/supplier relationships and requirements.

"I'm almost surprised that there are as many as 23 of the original companies still on the list," he says.

Some of the most prominent North Carolina 100 companies left the list by offering the public a piece of the action: Exposaic Industries (now Insteel Industries, No. 33 the last time it was on the list in 1985), Burlington Industries (No. 1 in 1991), Old Dominion Freight Line (No. 17 in 1991), Exide Electronics (No. 25 in 1989), Good-Mark Foods (No. 31 in 1985) and MEDIC Computer Systems (No. 75 in 1992).

Many more companies are absent from the ranking because somebody bought them, most as a result of consolidation sweeping across...