Forbes: Alabama’s 3 largest public companies are worth a combined $27.5 billion

Each year, Forbes, the business magazine famous for publishing the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, measures business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life for each state to determine which states are best for businesses. In 2013, Forbes ranked Alabama as 44th in the nation, only beating out New Mexico, West Virginia, Michigan, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Maine.

2014 might be different though. According to the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, Alabama added 31,600 jobs between September 2013 and September 2014. In September, Governor Bentley created the Alabama Small Business Commission, a group of small business leaders in Alabama that will help shape policy and encourage economic growth in the state. To be sure, these are small steps, but they’re in the right direction.

Ahead of 2014’s Best States for Business list, Forbes examined the biggest public companies in each state.

“To compile our list, we captured the market capitalization for all public companies traded on the major U.S. exchanges as of the end of the trading day on Nov. 3, using data provided by FactSet,” writes Erin Carlyle for Forbes. The magazine focused on the three biggest public companies in each state based on market cap, the dollar value of a company’s shares.

Here are the biggest public companies in Alabama:

Apple, which is headquartered in Cupertino, California, and led by Alabama native Tim Cook, is the largest public company in the nation with a market cap of $641.8 billion.