Six Philippine companies made it to this year’s Forbes magazine’s Global 2000 list, an international ranking of the world’s “biggest, most powerful and most valuable” publicly listed firms.
The six local companies that joined the 17th annual Global 2000 roster were BDO Unibank, SM Investments Corp., Top Frontier Investment Holdings, Ayala Corp., Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. and JG Summit Holdings Inc.
Except for Top Frontier, all these companies are part of the main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi), the cream of the crop in the local stock market.
Top Frontier is the controlling stockholder (66 percent owner) of conglomerate San Miguel Corp., which is part of the PSEi along with its oil refining arm Petron Corp.
BDO, led by the Sy family, was the highest-ranked local company on the Global 2000 roster at 1,018th place. Its parent conglomerate SM Investments ranked 1,092nd.
Top Frontier ranked 1,196th while Ayala—the oldest business house in the Philippines—ranked 1,236th. Metrobank and JG Summit ranked 1,639th and 1,720th, respectively.
The rankings are based on Forbes’ analysis of four metrics: sales, profits, assets and market value.
“It’s been a roller coaster of a year for global markets: Stocks saw both major gains and losses as volatility ticked upwards, trade tensions between the United States and China heated up, and many companies got a boost from new American corporate tax legislation,” Forbes said.
The magazine said its 17th annual ranking of the world’s largest public companies was a reflection of the state of the global economy today: who’s on top, who’s growing and who’s seen better days.
Of the 61 countries on the list, the United States was home to the largest number as 575 American companies made the cut.
China and Hong Kong had a combined delegation of 309, followed by Japan with 223.
“The breakdown looks very different than it did when Forbes first published the Global 2000 in 2003. That year, the United States contributed 776 companies while China and Hong Kong had just 43,” the magazine said.
For the seventh consecutive year, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China was at the top of the global list, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. overtook China Construction Bank for the No. 2 spot.
All of China’s “big four” banks are all still in the top 10.
Top 10
The top 10 companies on Forbes’ 2019 Global 2000 list (www.forbes.com/global2000) and their sectors:
- Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (China)—banking
- JPMorgan Chase (US)—diversified financials
- China Construction Bank (China)—banking
- Agricultural Bank of China (China)—banking
- Bank of America (US)—banking
- Apple (US)—technology hardware and equipment
- Ping An Insurance (China)—insurance
- Bank of China (China)—banking
- Royal Dutch Shell (The Netherlands)—oil and gas operations
- Wells Fargo (US)—diversified financials