Netscape, for example, the premier company making software to let computer owners get onto the Internet, went public in August at $28 a share.

"I have been intrigued watching premier companies and their management," Mr. Bays said.

"It's a premier company, and the wealth-creation opportunity there is terrific," he observed.

For so many years, Philip Morris was the premier company, the one everybody looked up to.

The audience for that one night's performance was nearly half the number of opera lovers who pay to hear America's premier company in its entire regular season.

It's called a search box, and it is just one battleground in a much larger conflict between two premier high-tech companies.

Others, though, read the stampede of premier companies to issue debt as a sign that credit is getting tight.

The first batch of students graduated in 2006 and were well placed in premier companies.

From his early twenties, Hammond held numerous senior roles with premier Australian ballet companies.

Tis the premier company of its kind in the world," Connor announced proudly.