Since 2005, Barron’s magazine has published a list of “The World’s Best CEOs.” In this paper, we examine the performance of selected companies over a one-year period following survey publication compared to a matched set of “unexcellent” companies. We analyze performance on a financial and accounting basis using stock returns and seven financial ratio measures. We find a statistically significant higher return from the “unexcellent” portfolio compared to the Top CEO portfolio. The correlation among pairs of the seven financial ratio measures has several statistically significant similarities between the two portfolios; however there are several clear differences which could indicate differences between the two portfolios.
