DATE: Tuesday, October 28, 1997             TAG: 9710280279

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

BEACH FIRM WINS PRAISEMETRO INFORMATION SERVICES IN NO.10 ON FORBES LIST OF 200 BEST SMALL COMPANIES

Few Hampton Roads companies took part in the Initial Public Offering boom of the mid-1990s, but one that did has grabbed national attention.

Virginia Beach-based Metro Information Services landed at No. 10 on Forbes magazine's list of the ``200 Best Small Companies.'' Forbes Nov. 3 edition carries the list.

Metro Information Services sold stock to the public for the first time in January. It garnered $34.2 million from that stock sale, and has since used the proceeds to acquire smaller companies and set up new offices.

Metro's staff of 1,900 provides consulting on information technology. The company sends its consultants to companies for 6-to-18-month stints to assist with computer programming, systems analysis and design, networking services and project management.

Metro's technology-related business falls into a broad category of many other companies on the Forbes list: one-quarter of the top 200 perform computer-related jobs, up from about one in 10 just 10 years ago.

John H. Fain, Metro's president, said the company generally uses recognition such as making the top 10 of the Forbes list to boost the ``staff's feelings about the company.''

``Of course, it doesn't hurt dealings with the clients either,'' Fain said. ``Being a new public company, we suspect it helps us with our investors, too.''

Forbes considered 6,000 companies in compiling its list of 200. To make the list, a company had to show a five-year return-on-investment of at least 14 percent, post earnings of at least $1 million over the previous 12 months and cannot have more than $350 million in annual revenue.

Metro, according to Forbes, posted an average annual return-on-equity of 52 percent, had $6.7 million in net income over the past 12 months, and sales of $129 million.

Forbes' top three small companies were: Panavision Inc., Abacus Direct Corp., and Eagle USA Airfreight Inc.

Of the 900 companies that have made the Forbes 200 list over the past decade, 120 have ``graduated'' by exceeding the $350 million annual sales limit. Another 125 merged with other companies and fell from the list.

Fain said one of Metro's goals would be to graduate from the Forbes 200 list.

Famous ``graduates'' include Cisco Systems, a Silicon Valley-based computer networking company, and T. Rowe Price Associates, a Baltimore-based mutual fund company.

``We wouldn't mind being in that company,'' Fain said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

[Forbes magazine]

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