Exxon tops Wal-Mart on Fortune 500 list

Exxon Mobil Corp. unseated Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on this year’s Fortune 500 list, shrugging off the oil price bubble and weathering what the magazine called the worst year ever for the country’s largest publicly traded companies.

Fortune’s closely watched list, released Sunday, ranked companies by their revenue in 2008. Exxon in Irving, Texas, took in $442.9 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19% from 2007. The company also raked in the biggest annual profit, earning $45.2 billion.

Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Ark., had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2 this year. Still, the retail giant’s revenue last year climbed 7% to $405.6 billion, as the battered economy sent more consumers searching for bargains. The world’s largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, a 5% increase.

Last year was far from rosy for most of the other companies. Overall earnings plunged 85% to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest one-year decline in the 55-year history of the Fortune 500 list.

“America is getting used to the sound of bubbles bursting,” Fortune said.