Forbes: World’s 2000 Biggest Publicly Listed Companies

Forbes just published a list of the world’s 2000 biggest publicly listed companies.

Here is the top 10:

By region, the Asia-Pacific had the most entries in the roster with China as the leader.

Forbes Scott DeCarlo quotes Gady Epstein (bold emphasis mine)

The Asia-Pacific region led The Global 2000 again this year with 701 companies, including the most additions to the list of the four regions (11) and by far the biggest increase in profits (they doubled). The biggest profit center was China, no surprise, as 121 companies, including PetroChina, ICBC and Sinopec, returned an aggregate profit of $168 billion. But Japan’s and South Korea’s conglomerate-led rosters provided surprisingly impressive returns: Japan turned from deficit to the region’s second-most-profitable nation and added assets and employees despite losing ten companies (Sumikin Bussan and Makita among them); South Korea added ten companies, more than China, and saw profits surge 178%. New additions: Samsung Life Insurance, Honam Petrochemical.

Meanwhile a large segment of the strong performance of US companies has been imputed to overseas sales.

Notes Mr. DeCarlo, (bold emphasis mine)

The U.S. companies on our list earn an average 26% of revenue outside the country, and world GDP grew at a rate of 5% in 2010. Almost one-quarter of the U.S. firms, names such as Aflac, Colgate-Palmolive and Intel, generate a majority of their sales from overseas operations. Still, the U.S. grip on The Global 2000 has been slipping since 2004, when the number of U.S. constituents was 751. It’s now 536. The U.S. still accounts for the most firms among the top 100 with 28

Incidentally, 4 companies from the Philippines had been included in this elite group.

Three of them, in my view, represents political enterprises.

The Forbes also listed the Global High Performers

These companies, according go to Scott DeCarlo, has been expanding their earnings at 23% annually and returned an average 16% to shareholders over the past five years.

Furthermore, the list has shown growth of 17% which topped the S&P 500 (up 14%) over the same time period with priceline.com, McDermott International and Genting as best performers.

In addition. Mr. DeCarlo notes, 69 of the 130 companies have headquarters outside the U.S. and includes global brand names, such as Spain’s Telefónica, Nestlé (Switzerland) and Christian Dior (France); as well as foreign companies with lower profiles, such as Denmark drug company, Novozymes. Among notable U.S. Global High Performers are Walt Disney, Google, McDonald’s, and Nike.

Read the rest about Global 2000 here.

All these add up to show how globalization has distributed corporate winners across nations.