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5.27.2001
Only local companies appear on list
The Impact 50 list includes public companies that have headquarters in Rhode
Island or significantly affect the Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts
or Connecticut economies.
Most of the companies appear in the Stocks of Local Interest column in the daily
and Sunday business sections.
The list of 50 includes publicly traded companies that sell stock on the three
major exchanges: New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
The list does not include privately held companies -- such as Boston-based Fidelity
Investments -- or companies with foreign owners -- such as Citizens Financial
Group, owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland, or Stop & Shop, owned by Royal
Ahold, based in the Netherlands.
Those companies do not make detailed financial reports to U.S. regulatory agencies
with information available to the public.
The research and data for the Impact 50 tables was compiled by Stephen W. Normandin
as a course requirement under the direction of Dr. Shaw Chen, professor of finance
at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Allan Graham, assistant professor of
accounting at URI, also supervised the project.
Normandin's project evolved into a product of The Sandra Ann Morsilli Pacific
Basin Capital Markets Research Center at URI where he works as a research associate.
Normandin also works as a controller for the metals division of Lenox, based
in Smithfield. He continues to take graduate classes in finance and other areas
at URI. Before this, he served in similar positions in finance and business
technology in the Rhode Island area.
Dr. Chen is a professor and director of the doctoral programs and director of
the Sandra Ann Morsilli Pacific Basin Capital Markets Research Center in the
College of Business Administration. He earned his doctorate from the University
of Michigan Business School and his master's in economics from National Taiwan
University. He specialized in business modeling, forecasting techniques, quality
management and financial analyses.
Dr. Graham has an undergraduate and MBA degree from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from
Virginia Tech. His research focuses on the information content of both printed
and web-based firm financial statement disclosures and on accounting information
systems.
Normandin compiled the data for the Impact 50 special report from the companies'
annual reports, called Form (10K), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The forms were obtained online at www.sec.gov and from the FreeEdgar.com database.
Stock prices and share data are compiled from either the Bloomberg or MSN websites.
The figures reported in the consolidated balance sheets and income statements
of a Form (10K) are deemed reliable because, in most cases, they were audited
by an independent firm, which provides a reasonable assurance that a company's
management assertions and presentations of financial data are free of material
misstatements.
When the financial statements did not list the exact type of information or
when the company's fiscal years did not coincide, notes explaining the differences
accompany the tables presented.
This is the second consecutive year that The Providence Journal has compiled
and published the Impact 50 special report.
The newspaper, with the cooperation of URI's PACAP Research Center, hopes to
publish similar reports annually.
If you have any comments, please contact John Kostrzewa, business editor,
at 277-7330 or by e-mail at jkostrze@projo.
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