ACE is included in Forbes magazine's “Best Big Companies,” a list of the best of the large, publicly traded companies in America published earlier this year. Forbes selects companies for the list after a thorough review of financial metrics, Wall Street forecasts, corporate governance ratings and other public information.

ACE was one of 23 companies named in the insurance category, which includes insurers and brokers. Of the companies we traditionally identify as our peers, only one—Chubb—appears on the list with us. AIG, Travelers, Hartford, XL and CNA, for instance, are all absent.

To arrive at its 400 Best list, Forbes screens more than 1,000 corporations with $1 billion or more in revenues, using metrics such as the latest 12-month and five-year stock market returns, sales and earnings-per-share growth, and debt-to-capital ratios. Forbes also uses Thomson IBES consensus forecasts to estimate long-term earnings growth, and Audit Integrity of New York and Los Angeles analyses to eliminate potential accounting and governance problems.

May 2007