Chinese banks dominate Forbes ranking of world’s biggest public companies

Although Forbes in a separate list named Apple the most valuable brand of 2017, the tech giant only managed to secure ninth spot in the overall ranking

Josie Cox
Business Editor
Wednesday 24 May 2017 11:34 BST
Comments
The list places Industrial & Commercial Bank of China at the top for a fifth consecutive year
The list places Industrial & Commercial Bank of China at the top for a fifth consecutive year

Despite an explosive rise in the power and market capitalisation of technology firms over the last year, China’s banking giants have defended their dominance of Forbes magazine's annual global ranking of the world’s biggest public companies.

The list, released on Wednesday, places Industrial & Commercial Bank of China at the top for a fifth consecutive year, followed by compatriot China Construction Bank.

Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China – the other two that make up China’s “Big Four” of finance – slipped down the list but remained in the top 10, qualifying as public companies despite largely being owned by the state.

Hedge-fund veteran Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which is the largest public company in the US, took third spot, followed by JPMorgan Chase in fifth.

Although Forbes in a separate list earlier this week named Apple the most valuable brand of 2017, the tech giant only managed to secure ninth spot in the overall list of the biggest public companies.

Companies that made it into this year’s list faced a slew of pressures stemming from an unsteady geopolitical climate and slowing economies. But Forbes said that in aggregate the 2,000 companies analysed managed to come out stronger than last year, with increased sales, profits, assets and market values.

“This list illustrates that in spite of headwinds, the world’s dominant companies remain a steady force in an unpredictable and challenging environment,” said Halah Touryalai of Forbes.

She said that despite slowing GDP figures, companies in China and the US make up more than 40 per cent of the 2017 and dominate the top ten.

On Wednesday, credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded China's rating for the first time in nearly 30 years, citing risks to the financial strength of the economy stemming from slowing growth and rising debt.

Notable gainers this year included General Electric, at 14th from 68th place in 2016, Amazon, up to 83rd from 237th, Charter Communications, at 107th from 784th and Alibaba, at 140th from 174th in 2016.

The US dominated the ranking with 565 companies, followed by China and Hong Kong with 263 companies, Japan with 229. The UK had 91 companies in the top 2,000.

But one of the UK’s highest ranked companies last year, banking giant HSBC, fell to 48th spot from 14th in 2016, with Forbes citing “economic malaise, low interest rate, paying fines, ongoing regulatory expenses and your usual dose of political uncertainty”.

Elsewhere Forbes said that low oil prices had continued to put pressure on companies in the energy sector, reflected in PetroChina falling 85 spots to 102nd place in this years’ ranking. Exxon Mobil slipped four spots to 13th while Chevron tumbled to just 359th from 28th.

Forbes takes sales, profits, assets and market value into account when constructing the list, using an equal weighting of each. Each company gets a score for each metric and the sum of each company’s scores determines its final spot in the ranking.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in