German Car Forum

BMW Group ranks no. 1 in its industry and no. 14 in the overall score

Woodcliff Lake, NJ, March 4, 2008 -- FORTUNE Magazine announced that BMW Group is one of "America's Most Admired Companies". The study ranks BMW Group no. 1 in its industry for the second time in a row. For the first time BMW Group also made it - as the only European company - into the overall top 20 list. More than 600 companies were surveyed.

The list and related stories appear in the March 17 issue of FORTUNE, on newsstands March 10 and are currently available online at Fortune on CNNMoney.com - Fortune 500 Daily & Breaking Business News.

Tom Purves, Chairman and CEO of BMW of North America, LLC, said: "We as BMW Group are honored and proud to be recognized as one of the most admired companies in the U.S. An important element is our strong customer orientation. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We are not just customer focused, we are customer obsessed. As an example, we are the only luxury performance car company to offer a comprehensive four-year free maintenance program at no cost with every vehicle we deliver. It means no service or maintenance bills and makes ownership more enjoyable."

The FORTUNE survey is a proof of BMW Group's long-term, value-oriented corporate philosophy. As a leader of industry, the company continues to make real contributions to the search for solutions to tomorrow's problems. Employees are the basis of the success. The highly skilled, committed employees of the BMW Group and the work that they produce form the basis for the company's success. Working in the BMW Group means meeting the demanding requirements of a premium manufacturer and service provider - being enthusiastic about the brands and products, achieving results of the highest quality, being willing to learn at all times, being flexible when it come to forms of work and working times and, most of all, wanting to push the success of the BMW Group further forward.

About FORTUNE's America's Most Admired Companies List
FORTUNE's America's Most Admired Companies list is the definitive report card on corporate reputations. FORTUNE's survey partners at Hay Group started with the FORTUNE 1,000 - the 1,000 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue - and the top foreign companies operating in the U.S. They sorted the companies by industry and selected the ten largest companies in each.

To create the 64 industry lists, Hay Group asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate companies in their own industry on eight criteria, from investment value to social responsibility. This year only the best are listed: A company's score must rank in the top half of its industry survey.

To create the top 20, an overall list of America's Most Admired Companies, Hay Group asked 3,721 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the ten companies they admired most. They chose from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in last year's survey, plus those that finished in the top 20% of their industry. Anyone could vote for any company in any industry. The difference in the voting rolls is why some results can seem anomalous; for example, Johnson & Johnson is one of the top ten America's Most Admired Companies but only second in its own industry.

A total of 622 companies in 65 industries were surveyed. Due to an insufficient response rate, the results of ten companies in the energy industry are not reported. In addition, for 46 companies, only the aggregate scores and ranks are published due to the distribution of responses in the following five industries: (1) Internet Services and Retailing, (2) Mortgage Services, (3) Oil and Gas Equipment, Services, (4) Wholesalers: Diversified, and (5) Wholesalers: Food and Grocery.

America's Most Admired Companies and The World's Most Admired Companies are registered trademarks of FORTUNE magazine, a division of Time Inc.
BMW Group In America
BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC began distributing vehicles in 2003. The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations for the BMW brand of motor vehicles, including motorcycles, the MINI brand, and the Rolls-Royce brand of Motor Cars; DesignworksUSA, an industrial design firm in California; a technology office in Silicon Valley and various other operations throughout the country. BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC in South Carolina is part of BMW Group's global manufacturing network and is the exclusive manufacturing plant for all Z4 models and X5 Sports Activity Vehicles and the upcoming X6 Sport Activity Coupe. The BMW Group sales organization is represented in the U.S. through networks of 338 BMW passenger car centers, 335 BMW Sports Activity Vehicle centers, 142 BMW motorcycle retailers, 82 MINI passenger car dealers, and 30 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. BMW (US) Holding Corp., the BMW Group's sales headquarters for North, Central and South America, is located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.