If Built to Last , Are They Built for Value?

In 1994, James Collins and Jerry Porras extolled the virtues of a selected group of visionary companies in Built to Last. Whether these visionary companies are good of investments is not clear. Collins and Porras find that their visionary firms outperform a “less visionary” comparison group and the market index through 1990. We can confirm Collins and Porras9s results on a raw and risk-adjusted basis for the years prior to the completion of their work, but the relationship weakens for the years following. And using market capitalization and SIC code benchmarks, we find little support for the superiority of these companies prior to or after the Collins-Porras study.