You’re surrounded by Miami’s Billion-Dollar multinationals

Before you start your next day of work, there’s a good chance you will bump into one of the multinationals that are part of WorldCity’s “Billion Dollar Club.”

After all, a company doesn’t have billions in dollars of sales without having a lot of customers.

In the Who’s Here database, WorldCity has identified 67 multinationals with a presence in the Greater Miami area which oversee at least $1 billion in annual revenues from South Florida.

The database itself has more than 1,450 multinationals, and all told these companies oversee more than $312 billion from their South Florida offices. Representing companies from more than 50 nations, most of them are focused on all or part of Latin America.

Many of these companies have revenues exceeding $1 billion globally, but WorldCity’s research focuses on these multinationals’ activities in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. So, the Billion Dollar Club is comprised only of those multinationals that oversee at least $1 billion in sales from South Florida.

Start with your morning routine. Perhaps you awaken and, feeling like eating a healthy breakfast, you decide to have a banana and a yogurt.

But first, you check your cell phone, which is plugged in right next to your bed.

Maybe your phone came from Brightstar, one of the world’s largest cell phone distributors, started in Miami by current Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. Brightstar is a $10.50 billion company based in Doral. Many of those phones are exported to South America, Central America and the Caribbean, the primary reason South Florida exports more cell phones that any other U.S. Customs district in the nation.

Brightstar is not alone when it comes to cell phones and other technology products – Doral is filled with tech distributors, including Intcomex, a locally grown company with $1.24 billion in annual sales overseen from South Florida, and Tech Data, a Clearwater, Florida-based multinational with $1.37 billion managed from South Florida.

Perhaps you have a regular carrier on your phone but there’s always the chance you are using prepaid cards, and they could be supplied by TracFone Wireless, a multinational that oversees $6.58 billion in sales, also from its Doral offices.

It’s quite possible that, without knowing it, you are depending on the services of a Boca Raton-based multinational with revenues of $1.36 billion, a company that does business not only in the United States but also in South and Central America. Unlike many of the Billion Dollar Club members in WorldCity’s Who’s Here database,
SBA Communications is not a household name. It is in the business of leasing tower space to wireless service providers.

Your hunger is building – the banana and yogurt await – but you decide first to check your bank account, to see if your paycheck has hit, which always brings a smile to your face, or to see if your credit card and insurance payments have left your account, which doesn’t.

You walk into your home office and take a seat at the desk and chair you purchased from an Office Depot, a $16.09 billion Boca Raton-based multinational.

Your bank account could be with HSBC or Citigroup, enormous global financial institutions that each oversees at least $1 billion in annual revenues from South Florida. Citi’s South Florida presence includes a large Latin America footprint while HSBC is largely focused on South Florida. You could be paying your American Express bill, which also oversees more than $1 billion from its South Florida office focused on Latin America, or an insurance bill that could be through AIG, which oversees $1.36 billion from its Latin America headquarters on Brickell.

But that banana and yogurt await.

That banana could be from Del Monte Fresh Produce, which operates quietly from its Coral Gables office. It oversees $3.93 billion in annual sales from Coral Gables, with about 300 of its 45,000 employees there.

The yogurt could be from Danone Americas, which oversees $7.38 billion in sales, much of it water, in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Maybe you decide to top it off with a cup of coffee brewed in your Mr. Coffee, which is owned by Jarden, an $8.29 billion multinational recently acquired by Newell Brands.

You almost forget but then remember to take your pill, one of any number of medications manufactured by Novartis, the Switzerland-based multinational that is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. It produces drugs for hypertension, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, bipolar disorder, depression, allergies, chronic hepatitis B and more. (We care about your privacy so we won’t divulge the medication you are taking.) With about two dozen employees at its Blue Lagoon headquarters just south of Miami International Airport, Novartis oversees sales of $5.55 billion and about 3,800 employees in the region.

Sitting atop your counter, next to your prescription, is a copy of WorldCity’s Who’s Here directory. You had mentioned it to a friend, telling them they could download it if they didn’t have a hard copy.

Alas, you let a little of your yogurt slide from your spoon and fall onto the floor. Luckily, underneath your sink you have some Clorox Disinfecting Wipes. Clorox, an Oakland-based company that owns Burt’s Bees, KC Masterpiece, Mistolin, Tilex and many other brands, oversees all of its $1.17 billion international operations from South Florida.

On the way out of the kitchen, you realize someone forgot to put the Kettle One vodka back into the liquor cabinet, so you do so quickly. Kettle One is just one of the many brands overseen by Diageo, a British spirits company that oversees $1.89 billion in sales from South Florida for its Latin America operations. It has roughly 160 employees in its local office and another 1,740 in the region reporting to South Florida.

You’re running a little late to get to work but you still wanted to
check on a flight to Bogota, which is served by Dallas-Fort Worth-based American Airlines, Santiago-based LATAM and Fort Lauderdale-based Spirit, all three members of the Who’s Here Billion Dollar Club. Might have to do that from the office during a break.

AA oversees $6.96 billion from South Florida, and dominates flights from Miami International Airport. Spirit flies out of Fort Lauderdale International Airport, overseeing $1.93 billion in annual sales. LATAM, with its North American hub in Miami, oversees $1.79 billion in sales from South Florida and is one of the rising stars of Latin America.

The fuel in all three very well might have been handled by another multinational like SBA Communications that is not a household name, World Fuel Services. It is actually South Florida’s largest multinational, with $43.39 billion in annual sales.

Just as you are walking out the door, up pulls your UPS driver with a package. UPS oversees the Americas from its Doral offices and $2.91 billion in annual sales. It has 1,000 employees in South Florida. It looks like it’s from L’Oreal, which oversees $2.57 billion in annual sales of cosmetics, hair- and skin-care products in the Latin America from South Florida. And that is a nice way to start the day.