Henry Schein advances to No. 238 on Fortune 500 list 

Henry Schein Inc., Long Island's largest publicly traded company by revenue, has advanced five places in the latest edition of the Fortune 500 released Monday.

The Melville distributor of products to the offices of dentists, veterinarians and physicians rose to No. 238 on the annual ranking of public companies by revenue.

Henry Schein, the region's sole representative on the list, posted 2017 net sales of $12.5 billion, well above the cutoff of about $5.43 billion.

The annual ranking highlighted a shift in Long Island's economy as some of the area's largest publicly traded companies have moved to other regions or been acquired by companies based elsewhere. Since 1998, Arrow Electronics Inc., Avnet Inc. and CA Technologies have moved from Long Island. Long Island Lighting Co. and Cablevision Systems Inc., the former owner of Newsday, were acquired.

"As in other geographic areas, Long Island public companies have been subject to both domestic and international consolidation, particularly by larger players outside our area," said Robert Goldberg, a professor of finance and economics at Adelphi University. "It remains to be seen whether or not there is a sufficient pipeline of rapidly growing businesses from which new large players will emerge."

One Long Island enterprise that has been growing through consolidation, and would have easily qualified for the Fortune 500 if it were a publicly traded company, is Northwell Health, based in New Hyde Park. The not-for-profit health care system reported revenue of $10 billion in 2017.

Among local public companies, Lake Success-based Broadridge Financial Solutions, which delivers proxy statements and annual reports to investors, vaulted from No. 749 last year to No. 592, falling short of the Fortune 500 with 2017 revenue of $4.1 billion. 

Melville-based MSC Industrial Direct Co. and  Lake Success-based Hain Celestial Group Inc. were ranked at Nos. 749 and 760. Both had revenue of about $2.9 billion.

Henry Schein, which became a public company in 1995, debuted on the list in 2004 with revenue of $4.1 billion.

Topping the Fortune 500 list was retail giant Walmart, followed by Exxon Mobil and Berkshire Hathaway.

--With Caroline Curtin