*Article of interview by Financial Times published in print and picked up by other media outlets:
The Financial Times revealed that T. C. Lewis and Co. is No. 36 on its inaugural FT The Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies 2020. Household names like Tesla, Netflix, Uber and PayPal made the list. These 4 established businesses are also among a group of just 36 of the overall 500 that are listed on an exchange.
It comes at a perilous and uncertain time for many companies, as the coronavirus severely curtails economies, workforces and ultimately growth. Yet the ranking also highlights 500 businesses across the continents for whom innovation and creativity have paid off — attributes that will underpin resilience and enable many of them to thrive once the worst effects of the pandemic are behind them.
“I can’t thank the Financial Times and Statista enough for this honor. Although it comes at a time when the business environment is really tough for a lot of people right now, this has been a really nice distraction for us – a great reminder of how far we’ve come,” says Cory Lewis, President and CEO. “We continue to work very hard in hopes of coming out of this pandemic stronger and better for having been through it. I think that entrepreneurs are built for adversity and curveballs, and although this one seems unprecedented in our lifetime, and we have a complete lack of leadership from the top of our country here in the US, we each have the ability to be leaders in our own circles and industries to make good decisions with the information that we’ve been provided by actual experts. And we can make our voices heard while looking out for each other in the small business community and for our fellow humans. I guess that I have digressed there a little, but it’s important. And there will also be some business opportunities that come from this as we move forward into our new normal, and I hope that entrepreneurs out there don’t lose their fire if they’ve been taken off course by this pandemic. I hope we can all turn our pent-up demand to get out into the world and work on new things into something really wonderful.”
The technology sector, led overwhelmingly by the US, accounts for a quarter of the overall list, followed by support services (9 per cent) and financial services (7 per cent). The ranking is not a reflection of the size of each country’s economy, but rather a function of the dynamism of a given market and, importantly, the willingness of its companies to be candid with their results. Brazil, for instance, featured fewer companies on the ranking than Colombia. Nearly nine in 10 on the overall list hail from the US and Canada alone. None of the top three companies — all from the US — had a 2015-18 compound annual growth rate below 600 per cent.
The full report featuring case studies and analysis from this year’s ranking was published in print on May 12. The full ranking is also available at FT.com.
T. C. Lewis & Co. is a multi-faceted, boutique real estate investment firm primarily operating in the Southeastern US focusing on acquisitions and property management of both company-owned commercial and residential income-producing properties, as well as third-party management, development, and construction. The company is headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina supporting regional offices around the Southeast. The company leadership has forgone pay so far during the pandemic and has kept all employees on at full payroll.