Canada’s 50 Best Managed Private Companies Award is offered by Motortruck sister publication the Financial Post and is sponsored by Arthur Andersen, CIBC, PeopleSoft Canada, and the National Post. Picking the elite companies that make the list is as meticulous as it is meritorious. This year there were 512 candidates. The company executives of each company were interviewed about their way of doing business. They had to provide an executive summary, answer a detailed questionnaire and take a delegation of accounting consultants on a plant tour. When the delegation finished with the executives, it investigated the employees. Next, Arthur Andersen, the Toronto-based accounting firm, sifted through the entries looking at the nature of the business, signs of growth and what sort of best practices the company has in place. The results were further narrowed and reviewed by a panel of business experts to come up with the final list of the 50 best-managed companies.