UK: JEANS GENIUS.

Most companies can produce a mission or value statement, if required. But few are prepared to spend half a billion pounds backing up their fine words. Levi Strauss is.

At first glance it doesn't look that good, does it? Here is a company in a famously unprofitable, rather stagnant sector, where low costs and often dubious ethics are the order of the day. Run by the descendants of its founder, the firm operates in a notoriously fickle market where it relies heavily on a single product.