Cargill Tops Private List: Many of the...

Cargill Tops Private List: Many of the largest U.S. corporations went private in the 1980s, but Midwestern agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. remains by far the biggest non-public company, according to a survey. Cargill, with $44 billion in annual sales, tops Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 biggest privately held companies, those that do not sell stock to the public. The Minneapolis-based grain concern is more than twice as big as the No. 2 private company, petrochemical firm Koch Industries Inc. of Wichita, Kan. Forbes noted that at least 120 of the 400 companies went private through leveraged buyouts in the late 1980s, and many of those now face huge debts and even bankruptcy.