Not Brand New – but Valuable

What’s the most valuable brand in the Valley? Brand Finance, a London consultancy, released its annual list last month of the 500 most valuable U.S. brands. Not surprisingly, the biggest local name was Burbank’s Walt Disney Co., which ranked No. 12 with a value of $30.7 billion. There were surprises, though. Two local companies appeared for the first time: Amgen Inc. ranked 368 with a value of $1.5 billion, and Health Net Inc. was close behind at 379 with a value of $1.47 billion. The Woodland Hills company has benefited like other health insurers from a growth in business following implementation of federal health reform, which has given them millions of new customers. “Health Net’s revenue grew by 26 percent this past year. As brand value is a function of future revenues, this helped immensely in placing them in the U.S. 500,” said Donghee Kim, Brand Finance’s director of marketing for North America. Amgen had been evaluated by Brand Finance in 2009 and didn’t make the list, but the Thousand Oaks biotech has since delivered sustained revenue growth and crossed the $20 billion revenue mark last year. “They have been incredibly profitable and the market has taken notice,” he said. Brand Finance uses a valuation method called “royalty relief.” It estimates a royalty rate that other companies would pay to use a brand, based on data measuring name awareness, market share, advertising spending and financial forecasts. The data measures brands, not companies. For example, Disney owns ESPN and ABC, separate brands that appear further down the list from the parent company’s name. Other greater Valley-based brands on the list include Warner Bros. (No. 65 at $7.2 billion), Princess Cruises (No. 403 at $1.4 billion) and Dole Food (No. 440 at $1.2 billion). Apple Inc. topped the list with a value of $128 billion, followed by Google Inc. at $76.7 billion. – Joel Russell