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Portland area tops in firms owned by women
Women own or equally co-own 58 percent of the region's privately held companies
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
BOAZ HERZOG
The Portland-Vancouver area retained its nation-leading rank this year in the concentration of businesses owned by women, a report released Monday shows.
An estimated 58 percent of the region's privately held businesses are either majority owned by women or equally split between men and women, says a report by the Center for Women's Business Research, a -nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. The Seattle area ranked second and Phoenix third in the report. The Portland area held the top spot in the center's last such report in 2002.
Monday's report, titled "Women-Owned Businesses in 2004: Trends in the Top 50 Metropolitan Areas," concluded that businesses owned by women are increasingly fueling the nation's economic health through job creation and revenue growth.
The analysis, which generated estimates using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, showed that the Portland area's 100,449 privately held companies that are at least half-owned by women generate more than $24 billion in annual sales and employ more than 196,000 workers. Portland ranks 15th in the growth in the number of such firms from 1997 to 2004, third in job growth and ninth in sales growth, the report said.
Women are the majority owners of 38 percent of the area's businesses, the report says, and ownership of an additional 20 percent is split equally between men and women. Men are the majority owners of the rest.-.