Tampa Bay’s top 10 largest public companies for 2022: New names lead the way

The last time the Tampa Bay Times compiled a list of Tampa Bay’s 10 largest public companies was in late 2019, less than four months before the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, half of the companies on that list have sold or merged, with five more taking their place — a remarkable pace of turnover for one metropolitan region, especially during a time fraught with economic uncertainty.

Since companies begin and end fiscal years at different points, for this ranking, we looked at each company’s revenues for their last four reported quarters. For most, that means revenues from October 2020 to September of this year; for Jabil, it means December 2020 to November 2021. The exception was the No. 1 company on our list, a newer brand that nonetheless dwarfs most other local firms.

Here’s a look at the new top 10 entering 2022.

1. TD Synnex

Headquarters: Largo

Revenues (projected): $57 billion to $64 billion

Employees: 22,000

CEO: Rich Hume

For years, Largo technology distribution company Tech Data was the largest public company in Tampa Bay. Then in 2020, it sold for $6 billion to a private equity group. That didn’t last long. This summer Tech Data completed an $8.3 billion merger with a public California competitor called Synnex, creating a new global brand dubbed TD Synnex, co-headquartered in California and Largo. The joint company has yet to file its first quarterly earnings report. But last year, Tech Data and Synnex reported combined revenues of $57 billion. And in September, TD Synnex projected revenues of $15 billion to $16 billion for the final three months of 2021. Even if the company fell short of that by half in each of the next four quarters, it would still compete for the title of Tampa Bay’s largest public company. As it stands, it projects to hold the title by a wide margin for a while.

2. Jabil

Headquarters: St. Petersburg

Revenues: $29.26 billion

Employees: 238,000

CEO: Mark Mondello

Jabil’s reign as Tampa Bay’s largest public company was a short one. But the company, which manufactures semiconductors and other tech components for everything from autos to medical companies, is still reporting strong revenues quarter after quarter, despite a global supply-chain slowdown that has led to chip shortages, and demand that’s still a challenge to meet. This month, leaders boosted Jabil’s projected revenues for the full fiscal year to a record $31.8 billion. “All in all, I feel good about where we’ve been, but I feel even better about where we’re going,” CEO Mark Mondello said on a call with investors. “In simple terms, at Jabil we build stuff, and we do so really, really well.”

3. Mosaic

Headquarters: Tampa

Revenues: $10.97 billion

Employees: 12,617 (as of February 2020)

CEO: Joc O’Rourke

Hillsborough County’s largest public company is poised to hit a big milestone. After nine months in 2021, the phosphate mining company is on pace to report more than $10 billion in annual sales for the first time since 2012. (It’s already hit that mark over the last four quarters.) High agricultural demand, coupled with supply-chain disruptions hitting growers worldwide, has nudged up prices for fertilizers like those produced by Mosaic. After spiking to a six-year high in October, Mosaic stock fell a bit when a Brazilian fertilizer company it purchased in 2018 sold $1.3 billion worth of the shares it acquired in that deal. But the company remains bullish on prospects for the agriculture supply market, forecasting higher prices for its products in 2022.

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4. Raymond James Financial

Headquarters: St. Petersburg

Revenues: $9.76 billion

Employees: 15,000 plus about 5,000 independent advisers

CEO: Paul Reilly

Early this year, the St. Petersburg wealth management firm reported it hit a record $1 trillion in assets under management in 2020. The company made one of its biggest purchases in years with the $1.1 billion acquisition of Pittsburgh’s TriState Capital Holdings. Its nearly $9.8 billion in revenues is almost double what it was in 2014, and absent a stock market crash, it seems all but certain to blow past $10 billion for the first time ever in 2022. “I think we’re well-positioned ... to continue our growth,” chairperson and CEO Paul Reilly told investors in November, “and if there’s a shock to the system, our capital and liquidity will put us in good stead.”

5. Roper Technologies

Headquarters: Sarasota

Revenues: $5.77 billion

Employees: 18,400 (as of December 2020)

CEO: Neil Hunn

Tampa Bay’s highest-priced stock fell just short of reaching $500 per share in 2021, but it could hit that mark next year. The industrial company, which makes everything from software to lab and medical equipment, has “about $5 billion of M&A firepower” to offer other companies, CEO Neil Hunn told investors recently. It’s also known for divesting its subsidiaries; one analyst has predicted Roper could consider splitting into different companies, a la another industrial giant, General Electric.

6. Bloomin’ Brands

Headquarters: Tampa

Revenues: $3.89 billion

Employees: 77,000 (as of December 2020)

CEO: David Deno

The parent company of Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse saw revenues plummet in the early days of the pandemic, but not by enough to dislodge the company from Tampa Bay’s top 10. Revenues for the first nine months of 2021 actually surpassed those of 2019, although net income has not yet caught up. Bloomin’s stock hit a high water mark of $31.60 per share in April, though it has since fallen as commodity and wage inflation prompted the company to hike menu prices this fall. “We remain optimistic as a company, and we’re seeing really great demand at our restaurants,” CEO David Deno told investors in November.

7. Masonite

Headquarters: Tampa

Revenues: $2.58 billion

Employees: 10,500 (as of January 2021)

CEO: Howard Heckes

Tampa door manufacturer Masonite celebrated one big milestone in 2021, cutting the ribbon on its new 56,000-square-foot Ybor City headquarters. But it’s also faced some of the same supply-chain, inflation and workforce-recruitment headwinds as other businesses tied to construction, with the cost of materials and logistics leading to price hikes. “It is fair to say that 2021 has proven itself to be even more challenging year from an operational standpoint than 2020,” CEO Howard Heckes told investors in November. The company does expect inflation to ease in 2022, though. “We think we’re doing the right things from a structural perspective,” Heckes said. “Demand is recovering, and it’s our obligation to be able to service that demand.”

8. MarineMax

Headquarters: Clearwater

Revenues: $2.063 billion

Employees: 2,666

CEO: Brett McGill

No Tampa Bay company has experienced growth quite like MarineMax. The Clearwater boat retailer surpassed $2 billion in revenues last year, up 37 percent from 2020 and 66 percent from 2019. In two years, the company purchased manufacturers, dealerships and marinas in Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and elsewhere, and it even boosted its local portfolio with the October purchase of Largo’s Intrepid Powerboats, which itself had $60 million in revenue last year. The pandemic brought a boating boom as people looked for socially distant ways to have fun — and that hasn’t really slowed despite supply-chain issues that have curtailed boat production. “If we had the boats, they would be delivered, and we’d have even higher earnings,” CEO Brett McGill told investors in October.

9. Primo Water

Headquarters: Tampa

Revenues: $2.060 billion

Employees: 8,880 (as of January 2021)

CEO: Thomas Harrington

In early 2020, Tampa’s Cott Corp., which bottled and distributed sodas and other carbonated beverages, purchased North Carolina’s Primo Water and changed its corporate identity, pivoting to water dispensers, supplies and refills. The company has maintained steady demand for its products and revenue growth, and after weathering the winds of the pandemic, appears ready to evolve. Primo Water announced it would phase out single-use bottled water production “to increase profitability and further reduce our environmental footprint,” CEO Thomas Harrington told investors in November. That month, it also announced it was relocating its corporate headquarters from an office on Boy Scout Boulevard to a larger space in a new building at the $500 million Midtown Tampa development. It wasn’t the only large Tampa corporation to do so.

10. Kforce

Headquarters: Tampa

Revenues: $1.524 billion

Employees: 2,000, plus 11,900 contractors (as of January 2021)

CEO: David Dunkel

Kforce’s legacy in Tampa may go beyond its $1.5 billion in annual revenues. In May, the staffing and professional services company sold its Ybor City headquarters to veterinary entrepreneur and real estate investor Darryl Shaw for $24 million. That area has since become an area of focus for a potential Tampa Bay Rays stadium in Hillsborough County. As for Kforce, the company used the sale as an opportunity to shift to a hybrid workforce, with some employees in the office and others remote. (It also would save the company $2 million per year, executives said.) In September, Kforce announced it was moving into Midtown Tampa, just as Primo Water did a few weeks later. That gives the new development claim to two of the biggest public companies in Tampa Bay.

Bubbling under

These six companies are bubbling just below the top 10. Why six instead of five? Because one, kitchen equipment manufacturer Welbilt — a Top 10 company in 2019 — is expected to go private early next year in a $3.5 billion sale to an Italian holding company. Here’s how much they made over the last four quarters.

SouthState Corp., Winter Haven: $1.52 billion

Welbilt, New Port Richey: $1.44 billion

PGT Innovations, Venice: $1.08 billion

LazyDays Holdings, Tampa: $1.02 billion

United Insurance Holdings Corp., St. Petersburg: $721.21 million

Heritage Insurance, Clearwater (but moving to Tampa): $624.38 million