These 35 Largest Minnesota Corps, generated Total Pretax Earnings in 2011 of $47.6 bil, which was a very nice increase of 35% over that of two years ago in 2009.
This Total Earnings Growth of 35% in the most recent two years of these 35 Largest Minnesota Corp is particularly noteworthy when you factor in the fact that because of the extremely high quality of these Minnesota Corps, their earnings remarkably held up very well in 2009. In fact, Minnesota is the only larger US State whose Total Earnings of its largest Corps in 2009 were higher than that in 2008. The Total Pretax Income of the 11 Minnesota Corps, generating more than $1 bil of Pretax Income in any of these years, was $29.0 bil in 2009, a 2% increase over 2008.
Minnesota citizens should be extremely proud of the operating performance in the most recent two years of their fine Minnesota Corporations.
Now I wanted to see if these very nice earnings also applied to smaller Minnesota Corps, which file with the SEC.
Thus, I found 21 Minnesota headquartered Smaller Corps filing with the SEC, which had Pretax Income or Pretax Loss of $20 mil or more in any of the most recent three years, and which weren't included in the 35 Largest Minnesota Corps. Thus, these 21 Smaller Minnesota Corps also did not have Pretax Income or Pretax Loss of more than $100 mil in any of the most recent three years. I used a lower $20 mil Pretax Income and Pretax Loss threshold in order to make sure the number of companies here are of sufficient size to be able to reach a valid conclusion.
In the most recent two years, these 21 Smaller Minnesota Corps did much better than the 35 Largest Minnesota Corps. The Total Pretax Income in 2011 of these 21 Smaller Minnesota Corps was a very robust 59% higher than such amount two years earlier in 2009.
Yeah, the Obama Administration created a very robust US economic environment, which permitted Minnesota companies of all sizes to do very well on the earnings front in the most recent two years.
In deriving Pretax Income, I start with Pretax Income under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and then exclude several clearly unusual very large items relative to Pretax Income, such as Asset Impairments, and Gains and Losses on both Debt Retirements and Asset Dispositions.
I use Pretax Income rather than After-tax Net Income, since so much of the change in effective income tax rates just happens due to financial engineering.
I excluded Corps in the Development Stage, and ones generating losses for many years.
Let me first show each of the 35 Largest Minnesota Corps, along with their Headquarters.
| Minnesota Largest Corps | Minnesota HQs |
| 3M | St Paul |
| Alliant Techsystems | Minneapolis |
| American Crystal Sugar | Moorhead |
| Ameriprise Financial | Minneapolis |
| Best Buy | Richfield |
| CH Robinson | Eden Prairie |
| CHS | Inver Grove Heights |
| Deluxe | Shoreview |
| Donaldson Co | Minneapolis |
| Ecolab | St Paul |
| Enbridge Energy Partners | Duluth |
| Fair Isaac | Minneapolis |
| Fastenal | Winona |
| General Mills | Minneapolis |
| Graco | Minneapolis |
| HB Fuller | St Paul |
| Hormel Foods | Austin |
| Life Time Fitness | Chanhassen |
| Medtronic | Minneapolis |
| Mosaic | Plymouth |
| Patterson Companies | St Paul |
| Pentair | Golden Valley |
| Polaris Industries | Medina |
| Regis Corp | Minneapolis |
| St Jude Medical | St Paul |
| Supervalu | Eden Prairie |
| Target | Minneapolis |
| TCF Financial | Wayzata |
| Techne | Minneapolis |
| Toro | Bloomington |
| Two Harbors Investment | Minnetonka |
| UnitedHealth Group | Minneapolis |
| US Bancorp | Minneapolis |
| Valspar | Minneapolis |
And below here is the Pretax Income (PTI) or Pretax Loss of each of these 35 Largest Minnesota Corporations for each of the most recent three years, along with the related percentage changes in earnings.
| Obama | ||||||
| Bump | ||||||
| PTI(L) | PTI(L) | Two Year | ||||
| % | % | % | ||||
| Change | Change | Change | ||||
| Total | Total | Total | 2011 | 2010 | 2011 | |
| PTI(L) | PTI(L) | PTI(L) | vs | vs | vs | |
| 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2010 | 2009 | 2009 | |
| mils $s | mils $s | mils $s | ||||
| Minnesota Largest Corps | ||||||
| UnitedHealth Group | 7,959 | 7,383 | 5,808 | 8% | 27% | 37% |
| US Bancorp | 6,629 | 4,200 | 2,632 | 58% | 60% | 152% |
| 3M | 6,031 | 5,755 | 4,632 | 5% | 24% | 30% |
| Target | 4,456 | 4,495 | 3,872 | -1% | 16% | 15% |
| Medtronic | 3,723 | 3,969 | 3,061 | -6% | 30% | 22% |
| Mosaic | 2,585 | 1,190 | 2,233 | 117% | -47% | 16% |
| General Mills | 2,428 | 2,205 | 1,942 | 10% | 14% | 25% |
| Best Buy | 2,250 | 2,331 | 2,329 | -3% | 0% | -3% |
| Ameriprise Financial | 1,385 | 1,634 | 920 | -15% | 78% | 51% |
| CHS | 1,148 | 584 | 504 | 97% | 16% | 128% |
| St Jude Medical | 1,019 | 1,209 | 1,057 | -16% | 14% | -4% |
| American Crystal Sugar | 813 | 535 | 544 | 52% | -2% | 49% |
| Hormel Foods | 719 | 625 | 528 | 15% | 18% | 36% |
| CH Robinson | 695 | 624 | 587 | 11% | 6% | 18% |
| Ecolab | 680 | 748 | 620 | -9% | 21% | 10% |
| Fastenal | 575 | 431 | 297 | 33% | 45% | 94% |
| Enbridge Energy Partners | 507 | 471 | 401 | 8% | 17% | 26% |
| Alliant Techsystems | 439 | 473 | 407 | -7% | 16% | 8% |
| Supervalu | 404 | 347 | 632 | 16% | -45% | -36% |
| Patterson Companies | 356 | 339 | 320 | 5% | 6% | 11% |
| Polaris Industries | 347 | 219 | 151 | 58% | 45% | 130% |
| Pentair | 313 | 300 | 173 | 4% | 73% | 81% |
| Donaldson Co | 312 | 230 | 161 | 36% | 43% | 94% |
| Valspar | 307 | 319 | 238 | -4% | 34% | 29% |
| Deluxe | 223 | 236 | 170 | -6% | 39% | 31% |
| Graco | 210 | 149 | 69 | 41% | 116% | 204% |
| TCF Financial | 179 | 244 | 144 | -27% | 69% | 24% |
| Toro | 175 | 141 | 96 | 24% | 47% | 82% |
| Techne | 165 | 156 | 155 | 6% | 1% | 6% |
| Life Time Fitness | 154 | 134 | 120 | 15% | 12% | 28% |
| Two Harbors Investment | 126 | 35 | 2 | 260% | 1650% | 6200% |
| HB Fuller | 124 | 96 | 120 | 29% | -20% | 3% |
| Fair Isaac | 97 | 92 | 101 | 5% | -9% | -4% |
| Regis Corp | 48 | 53 | 127 | -9% | -58% | -62% |
| Total all 35 | 47,581 | 41,952 | 35,153 | 13% | 19% | 35% |
Now let me show each of the 21 Smaller Minnesota Corps, along with their Headquarters location.
| Minnesota Smaller Corps | Minnesota HQs |
| Advanced BioEnergy | Minneapolis |
| Apogee Enterprises | Minneapolis |
| Arctic Cat | Plymouth |
| Buffalo Wild Wings | Minneapolis |
| Capella Education | Minneapolis |
| Digital River | Minnetonka |
| G&K Services | Minnetonka |
| Great Northern Iron Ore Properties | Saint Paul |
| Hawkins Inc | Minneapolis |
| Moneygram Intl | Minneapolis |
| MTS Systems | Eden Prairie |
| Nash Finch | South Minneapolis |
| Northern Oil & Gas | Wayzata |
| NVE Corp | Eden Prairie |
| Piper Jaffray | Minneapolis |
| Proto Labs | Maple Plain |
| Select Comfort | Minneapolis |
| Stratasys | Eden Prairie |
| Surmodics | Eden Prairie |
| Tennant Co | Minneapolis |
| Winmark Corp | Minneapolis |
And below here is the Pretax Income (PTI) or Pretax Loss of each of these 21 Smaller Minnesota Corporations for each of the most recent three years, along with the related percentage changes in earnings.
| Obama | ||||||
| Bump | ||||||
| PTI(L) | PTI(L) | Two Year | ||||
| % | % | % | ||||
| Change | Change | Change | ||||
| Total | Total | Total | 2011 | 2010 | 2011 | |
| PTI(L) | PTI(L) | PTI(L) | vs | vs | vs | |
| 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2010 | 2009 | 2009 | |
| mils $s | mils $s | mils $s | ||||
| Minnesota Smaller Corps | ||||||
| Select Comfort | 90 | 50 | 18 | 80% | 178% | 400% |
| Capella Education | 82 | 97 | 66 | -15% | 47% | 24% |
| Northern Oil & Gas | 77 | 26 | 5 | 196% | 420% | 1440% |
| Buffalo Wild Wings | 73 | 57 | 45 | 28% | 27% | 62% |
| MTS Systems | 73 | 27 | 24 | 170% | 13% | 204% |
| G&K Services | 65 | 60 | 51 | 8% | 18% | 27% |
| Nash Finch | 58 | 72 | 60 | -19% | 20% | -3% |
| Tennant Co | 49 | 35 | 19 | 40% | 84% | 158% |
| Arctic Cat | 46 | 18 | 1 | 156% | 1700% | 4500% |
| Moneygram Intl | 45 | 56 | (30) | -20% | 287% | 250% |
| Hawkins Inc | 35 | 32 | 39 | 9% | -18% | -10% |
| Stratasys | 31 | 19 | 6 | 63% | 217% | 417% |
| Piper Jaffray | 30 | 57 | 57 | -47% | 0% | -47% |
| Digital River | 27 | 15 | 67 | 80% | -78% | -60% |
| Proto Labs | 27 | 16 | 7 | 69% | 129% | 286% |
| Winmark Corp | 24 | 18 | 10 | 33% | 80% | 140% |
| Great Northern Iron Ore Properties | 23 | 17 | 11 | 35% | 55% | 109% |
| NVE Corp | 17 | 20 | 18 | -15% | 11% | -6% |
| Surmodics | 7 | 6 | 63 | 17% | -90% | -89% |
| Advanced BioEnergy | 6 | 16 | (23) | -63% | 170% | 126% |
| Apogee Enterprises | 4 | (21) | 46 | 119% | -146% | -91% |
| Total all 21 | 889 | 693 | 560 | 28% | 24% | 59% |
