SAS Institute - Business

Business

SAS Institute remains a wholly owned private company enabling the management, led by James Goodnight, to run the company without concern about the demands of shareholders. Approximately 25% of the revenue of the SAS Institute goes to research and development. SAS has remained a private company for more than 35 years. It’s been profitable every year and has never had a layoff. CEO Jim Goodnight has been able to keep the company private, largely because SAS has no debt, and its large cash pools prevent outside pressure for layoffs during hard times.

SAS had revenues of $138,000 during its first year in business in 1976 and $506,000 its second year. Revenues continued to approximately double each year, reaching $19.6 million by 1982. From 1983 to 1993 revenues grew by approximately $20 to $100 million each year reaching $420.2 million by 1993 and $1.18 billion by 2002. Since 2002 the company has grown by $100 to $250 million each year reaching $2.43 billion in annual revenues in 2010. SAS' partners include Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, EMC Greenplum (a division of EMC), Hewlett Packard, IBM, Oracle and Teradata.