METHODOLOGY

摘要

In January, we asked each company that appeared in our 2008 Big 50 to provide us with updated financial information for this year's listing. Companies were asked to fill out an online nomination form on our Web site, www.inddist.com. That information was confirmed in follow-up interviews with company executives and, when possible, in recently published financial documents.rnAs happens each year, the Big 50 landscape has changed in the last 12 months. Fluid Power Resource LLC, which appeared on our list in 2007 and 2008, was acquired by Applied Industrial Technologies last summer, and therefore does not appear this year. Saginaw, Mich.-based Mahar Tool, a longtime Big 50 company, is absent because it did not meet the $90 million cutoff figure for this year's report. And finally, Ontario-based Canadian Bearings and California-based Harrington Industrial Plastics did not provide the information to be listed this year. The companies ranked 33rd and 35th, respectively, in our 2008 report.