Forbes Magazine's 2010 list of America's 100 Best Small Companies

Forbes Magazine is out with the list of America's 100 Best Small Companies for 2010. The Forbes list includes only publicly traded companies with annual revenue between $5 million and $1 billion. The companies on the list all have a stock price of at least $5 per share, and Forbes excluded financial institutions, real estate investment trusts, utilities and limited partnerships.

The rankings are based on earnings growth, sales growth and return on equity in the past 12 months and over five years. They dropped companies that are thinly traded and those with fuzzy accounting or major legal troubles. They also factored in the stock performance of each company compared with that of its peers.

Topping this year's ranking is $218 million (sales) Medifast which sells prepackaged meal plans through a network of salespeople called health coaches. In Medifast's direct-sales model successful dieters are encouraged to become coaches themselves. Halfway into 2010 there were 8,000 coaches, up 72% from the same period in 2009.

The top ten companies in the list are:

Rank	Company	Sales ($mil)	Sales Growth (%)	EPS Growth (%)	ROE (%)
1	Medifast	218	41	35	17
2	InterDigital	359	17	149	48
3	American Public Education	174	49	47	28
4	Deckers Outdoor	869	33	35	22
5	WebMD Health	480	28	103	21
6	NutriSystem	534	63	76	51
7	National Presto Industries	491	27	34	39
8	Industrial Services of America	285	3	22	22
9	True Religion Apparel	335	54	50	48
10	Transcend Services	84	33	91	28

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