For Dallas-Fort Worth’s public companies, there may never be another year like 2020.

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the economy in every way, many of the region’s biggest corporate players shrank, dragged down by a slump in oil prices, a reluctance to fly or the complete shutdown of live events and other entertainment.

It also was the year Exxon Mobil Corp., the region’s perennial king of the hill, fell a notch in The Dallas Morning News’ annual ranking, compiled with the assistance of Bloomberg data analysts.

McKesson Corp., one of North Texas’ California transplants, surpassed the Irving-based oil giant to gain the top spot with revenue exceeding $231 billion, compared with Exxon’s $178 billion.

But don’t count Exxon out.

With oil prices on the rebound this year, the global player could ascend once again based on the strength of early 2021 results that saw Exxon book $59 billion in revenue in the first three months. McKesson, which operates on an April to March fiscal year, has already set the 2021 target, recording $238 billion in revenue.

After the top two, it was a textbook example of winners and losers.

Health care companies, homebuilders, financial firms and consumer products makers — especially toilet paper supplier Kimberly-Clark — all turned in revenue wins. Arlington-based D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder, saw a 15% spike in its revenue, and its subsidiary that develops residential lots, Forestar Group, soared more than 117%.

North Texas homebuying surged 21% in January from the previous year and never really slowed down after that. Credit low mortgage rates and a seller’s market for driving home prices to unprecedented levels.

Airlines, oil and gas, retailers and hotel and restaurant chains took massive hits, feeling the pandemic’s hibernation-inducing grip for much of the year. Fort Worth-based American Airlines watched its revenue plummet 62%, and its crosstown rival, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, didn’t fare much better — sinking nearly 60%.

But as vaccination rates pick up and consumers confined to their homes much of last year begin to revenge spend, 2021 is shaping up as a year of recovery for nearly every corner of North Texas’ highly diversified economy.

Who came out on top?

McKesson’s rise to the top marks the first time one of the region’s California transplants led the Top 150 ranking. The medical and pharmaceutical supplier moved to North Texas in April 2019.

Now headquartered in Irving, McKesson saw its revenue soar almost $17 billion in its 2020 fiscal year. And that didn’t include much of the financial lift it got from lucrative government contracts to deliver vaccine supplies around the country.

At the start of the pandemic, people scrambled to stock up on prescriptions to prepare for government-ordered lockdowns, said Ashtyn Evans, a health care equity analyst at the Edward Jones investment firm. Drug volumes dipped later in the year as the pandemic dragged on.

“Health care typically holds up better because it’s harder to delay health care products,” said Evans, who noted that McKesson distributes one-third of all prescriptions in the U.S.

Other locally based health care companies also benefited from the nation’s pandemic response.

Retractable Technologies Inc., a Little Elm-based maker of syringes, saw its 2020 revenue nearly double from the previous year on the strength of government contracts to ramp up production for the vaccine rollout. Its two contracts totaled $137. 4 million last year.

Addus HomeCare Corp., a Frisco-based caregiver business that operates 215 locations in 23 states, posted a nearly 18% revenue gain as Americans turned to home care rather than in-person visits to the doctor or hospital.

But 2020 wasn’t universally positive for all health-related companies. Farmers Branch-based Tenet Healthcare, for example, saw its revenue fall 4.5%, primarily from a pause in elective surgeries — an increasingly important part of its business.

Wedbrush financial adviser Chris Mooney said elective surgery postponements weighed heavily last year on the U.S. health care industry’s financial results. The businesses “were hurt overall, besides the [government] grants that helped,” he said.

Mooney pointed to Orthofix, a Lewisville-based medical device company that manufactures implants and screws used in surgeries, and the $53 million revenue hit it took last year.

Patient volumes are rebounding this year and hospital stocks are soaring. Tenet’s shares are up around 70% year-to-date.

The biggest winners in 2020 were any companies involved in building homes, as the red-hot housing market accelerated throughout the pandemic.

Builder D.R. Horton Inc. posted a 15.5% revenue gain in 2020, and homebuilding supplier Builders FirstSource’s sales spiked 17.6%. D.R. Horton’s affiliated company, Forestar Group Inc., had that triple-digit revenue gain.

Edward Jones consumer analyst Brian Yarbrough called it a “perfect storm” year for the residential real estate industry, with the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low and the health crisis causing many urban residents to seek land and space in suburban or rural areas.

“The pendulum swung toward [the industry],” Yarbrough said. “How big does it swing back toward entertainment? As people get back to normal, they may not have as much cash laying around.”

Last year’s divisive presidential election also played a role in driving up revenue for another North Texas company. Irving-based Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest owner of local television stations, moved into the ranking’s top 30 as its revenue soared by $1.5 billion. It cited political advertising as a key contributor.

Who took the hardest hits?

The pandemic and resulting recession had a predictably disastrous impact on industries and companies involved in oil and gas production, or anything to do with travel and hospitality.

Exxon, pipeline operator Energy Transfer and its related gasoline distributor Sunoco, refiner HollyFrontier and Irving-based independent oil and gas explorer Pioneer Natural Resources all recorded revenue drops ranging from 27% to 36%. High oil prices early in 2020, followed by a falloff in driving during the pandemic, are mostly to blame.

Petroleum consumption by the transportation sector declined 16% last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Transportation typically accounts for 70% of all U.S. petroleum use.

Despite a troubled 2020, the energy market is almost back to where it was before the pandemic, Mooney said. Some analysts are forecasting $100 oil by the end of the year.

“If that happens, that would certainly pull capital back into the Texas oil industry,” according to a monthly report compiled by Robert Dye, Comerica Inc.’s chief economist. “By the third week of June, the Texas rig count had improved to 221 active rigs, more than double the level from a year earlier.”

The air travel industry is also coming back.

On June 20, the most recent Sunday travel day, passenger traffic through U.S. airports had rebounded to 77% of pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration. That was up nearly 256% from 2020′s dismal number on the same day.

A year ago, Dallas-Fort Worth’s two major airlines were worried about simply surviving, as multibillion-dollar losses led to an industry bailout by the federal government. American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both took billions of dollars in grants and loans to stave off mass layoffs that could have sunk the country into a deeper recession.

Both companies tumbled in The News’ annual ranking. American fell from the fifth-largest company in D-FW by revenue to ninth. Southwest slipped from sixth to 19th.

Rivaling the travel industry for hardest hit by the pandemic were the hotel, restaurant and entertainment sectors.

Revenue declines recorded by Dallas hotelier Monty Bennett’s empire, especially Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc. and Braemar Hotels and Resorts Inc., were typical across that industry. Ashford Hospitality Trust’s revenue evaporated by 66%, while Braemar saw 53% of its revenue disappear.

For a finer point on the pandemic’s impact, look no further than amusement parks and movie theaters. Shelter-in-place orders and germ spread fears led to silenced rides and empty seats.

Arlington-based Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which operates 26 theme parks in North America, watched its revenue dwindle from nearly $1.5 billion in 2019 to $356 million last year — a 76% drop.

Plano-based Cinemark Holdings Inc.’s decline was even more dramatic. Revenue for the movie theater chain plummeted from $3.28 billion in 2019 to $686 million last year — a 79% dive.

Both companies are building back this year, with amusement parks and movie theaters reopened. Cinemark has even tapped into new ways to use its theaters — as esports venues for public gaming.

New faces and the soon-to-be departed

Corporate headquarters relocations, initial public offerings and direct listings through special purpose acquisition companies brought a handful of new names to this year’s ranking.

Real estate titan CBRE Group made Dallas its official corporate home, leaving California behind and taking a spot among D-FW’s five largest companies. Financial services firm First Foundation also left the Golden State.

Drive Shack, a golf entertainment business similar to Dallas-based Topgolf or ClubCorp’s Big Shots, arrived from the East Coast, moving its headquarters from New York to Dallas.

Thryv Holdings, Alkami Technology, Vine Energy, Signify Health, RumbleOn and Berry Corp. are also first-timers in the ranking. Thryv’s 2020 revenue topped $1.1 billion, making it one of 67 D-FW companies to top the billion-dollar mark.

Next year’s ranking also stands to lose some longtime names through go-private deals or mergers.

Plano-based At Home Group Inc., Irving-based Michaels Cos. Inc., Euless-based U.S. Concrete Inc., Dallas-based RealPage Inc. and Grand Prairie-based Neos Therapeutics all have closed deals or are in the process of leaving the public company ranks.

Looking forward

So what’s ahead for the remainder of 2021?

In May, the Dallas-Plano-Irving side of the metro area created 17,400 jobs last month, accounting for half the new jobs statewide. But the eastern side of D-FW is still 75,000 jobs shy of its pre-pandemic level.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas had projected that Texas would add over 800,000 jobs this year, which would have recouped all the positions lost during the pandemic. It has since cut its forecast to 510,500 this year, in part because of new COVID-19 fears.

“The forecast was revised down this month primarily due to an upward revision in the anticipated path of COVID-19 hospitalizations,” said Keith Phillips, Dallas Fed assistant vice president and senior economist. “While the percentage of Texans vaccinated against COVID-19 continues to increase, the pace of vaccinations has slowed, and the more contagious Delta variant is spreading. Together, these two patterns have changed the outlook for COVID-19 hospitalizations in the third quarter from a consistent downward trend to a slight increase through September.”

Supply-side complications, such as difficulty finding workers, widescale shortages of materials, long lead times and transportation issues, also threaten to restrain economic growth, according to Dallas Fed senior business economist Laila Assanie and research analyst Carlee Crocker.

Waco economist Ray Perryman remains bullish on Texas’ rebound.

“We can reasonably expect a solid comeback as the global economy is able to reopen and both business and leisure travel resume,” Perryman said. He noted that prices are rising, too — a positive sign for businesses trying to make up lost ground.

“The fortunes of individual companies will vary based on specific circumstances, but there should be ample opportunities for expansion and innovation going forward.”