Among 104,231 limited liability fi rms in Sweden with at least two employees during 1997-2010, almost 10 % did not hire new employees in any given 3-year period despite having high profi ts. Nearly half of these firms continued to have high or medium pro fits in the next three-year period, but still no growth. Regression analysis indicates that these fi rms were not randomly distributed; rather they were small and young, did not belong to an enterprise group, and operated in local markets with high profi t-opportunities. We conclude that it might be more benefi cial to focus policy towards these firms instead of towards a few high-growth fi rms that, having just grown exponentially, may not be best positioned to grow further.