Pier 1 did not start as a "penny stock" - it was a highly successful,initially highly profitable business, already strongly established business that went to the brink of BK for various reasons of mis-mgt and bad econ times per its biz model. Those are the few exceptions of companies that ever reached "penny status" and emerged to regain their once prominence. Never the reverse that I am aware of. Not what the original statement posited. Find a company that grew from a penny stock level, then gained initial sales, then became a billion or even several hundred $million in sales.