Trust Across America (TAA) has set a standard for measuring trustworthy business behavior through our FACTS analysis, combining financial and non-financial metrics. TAA has been tracking the performance of the top companies based on our five FACTS drivers- Financial stability, Accounting conservativeness, Corporate integrity,Transparency and Sustainability.
Our proprietary research and external back-test of our universe of almost 3000 public companies confirm that the most trustworthy companies provide long-term benefits to all stakeholders, including shareholders. In November, 2010, our data selected 59 companies that met our “Gold Standard” of trustworthy business behavior. The chart (link) below is a graphic representation of the performance of this group of companies since 1999 vs. the S&P 500.
These Gold Standard companies are outperforming the S&P 500 by over 500% since 1999, and by approximately 35% since we began tracking them in November 2010.
This group contains many “household” names like Aflac, Fed Ex, Lexmark and Cigna. Others are not so well known- Albemarle, Praxair, Teco Energy and Lubrizol, which was recently acquired by Berkshire Hathaway.
But whether well known or unknown, they all share a common characteristic. They have adopted a culture of trustworthy business that benefits all stakeholders, including shareholders.
So while the news continues to be filled with stories about the lack of trust in business, companies actually can do good and be profitable at the same time.
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