Chinese Banks Top Forbes List Of World’s Largest Public Companies
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For the first time in history, two Chinese banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Construction Bank (CCB), on Wednesday managed to unseat American oil giant ExxonMobil as the world’s largest public company on the Forbes Global 2000 list, as double-digit growth in both sales and profits propelled them higher in the world’s power rankings.
For the first time in history, two Chinese banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Construction Bank (CCB), on Wednesday managed to unseat American oil giant ExxonMobil as the world’s largest public company on the Forbes Global 2000 list, as double-digit growth in both sales and profits propelled them higher in the world’s power rankings.
Although Forbes noted that annual profit growth at both banks in 2012 was the slowest rate since they went public, the two Chinese firms were able to eclipse their rivals thanks to the list’s equal weighting of sales, profits, assets and market value to rank companies according to size.
ICBC, the top ranked company, for instance brought in $37.8 billion in profits on $2.8 trillion in assets last year, while CCB earned $30.6 billion on $2.2 trillion in assets.
ExxonMobil, while the world’s most profitable company for the second year in a row with $44.9 billion in net income, saw their position the world’s largest company suffer as they only came in at 91st spot for their assets size ($333.8 billion).
[quote]”This year’s list again reveals the dynamism of global business,” said Scott DeCarlo, Forbes’ list editor.[/quote]“Our justification for using a composite ranking is simple: One metric alone can give a false impression about corporate size.
“Our ranking of the world’s biggest companies departs from lopsided lists based on a single metric, like sales. Instead we use an equal weighting of sales, profits, assets and market value to rank companies according to size,” he added.
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In total, banks and other financial-services firms dominated the list this year, accounting for 469 of the world’s top companies. The next three biggest industries by membership were oil and gas (124), materials (122) and insurance (109).
Meanwhile, Apple Inc. retained its top spot as the world’s largest company by market capitalisation ($416.6 billion). Fannie Mae was the world’s largest company by asset size ($3.226 trillion), while Wal-Mart reclaimed the top perch as the word’s sales leader with 5.0 percent growth from Dutch-Anglo energy firm Royal Dutch Shell.
Forbes highlighted three Asian countries that showed standout overall growth in the list: Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Belgium, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates on the other hand saw the biggest increase in company market values, all with double-digit growth from a year ago.
Region-wise Asia-Pacific had the largest number of companies on the list (715). U.S. companies, recovering from the financial crisis, lead in profit growth (up 4 percent), earning an aggregate $876 billion in profits and market value growth (11 percent), with an aggregate value of $14.8 trillion.
Surprisingly however, despite possessing the world’s two largest companies, China did not increase the number of its companies on the list for the first time since 2004. Forbes warned that while most analysts did not expect a banking crisis in China, rising defaults and shrinking loan profitability were serious threats to the country’s banking system.
The World’s Ten Largest Companies
1. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Country: China
Sales: $134.8 billion
Profits: $37.8 billion
Assets: $2.813 trillion
Market Value: $273.3 billion
2. China Construction Bank
Country: China
Sales: $113.1 billion
Profits: $30.6 billion
Assets: $2.241 trillion
Market Value: $202 billion
3. JPMorgan Chase
Country: U.S.
Sales: $108.2 billion
Profits: $21.3 billion
Assets: $2.359 trillion
Market Value: $191.4 billion
4. General Electric
Country: U.S.
Sales: $147.4 billion
Profits: $13.6 billion
Assets: $685.3 billion
Market Value: $243.7 billion
5. Exxon Mobil
Country: U.S.
Sales: $420.7 billion
Profits: $44.9 billion
Assets: $333.8 billion
Market Value: $400.4 billion
6. HSBC Holdings
Country: U.K.
Sales: $104.9 billion
Profits: $14.3 billion
Assets: $2.684 trillion
Market Value: $201.3 billion
7. Royal Dutch Shell
Country: Netherlands
Sales: $467.2 billion
Profits: $26.6 billion
Assets: $360.3 billion
Market Value: $213.1 billion
8. Agricultural Bank of China
Country: China
Sales: $103 billion
Profits: $23 billion
Assets: $2.124 trillion
Market Value: $150.8 billion
9. Berkshire Hathaway
Country: U.S.
Sales: $162.5 billion
Profits: $14.8 billion
Assets: $427.5 billion
Market Value: $252.8 billion
9. PetroChina
Country: China
Sales: $308.9 billion
Profits: $18.3 billion
Assets: $347.8 billion
Market Value: $261.2 billion
Check Out The Full Forbes Global 2000 List
