The financial results considered were those for the financial year concluded on March 31, 2005.
Despite the war in Iraq and the increase in the petroleum prices, the world''s top companies became even richer. The trend of the petroleum price has favoured the rise of the petroleum giants in the top 100. The total market capitalisation of the petroleum companies increased by 400bn dollars in 2004.
ExxonMobil was very close to unseating General Electric, and finally came out second with a market capitalisation of 380.5bn dollars.
There were also significant advances for BP, Total, ChevronTexaco, Eni, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch/Shell. The latter rose from 13th to seventh place, despite management changes.
Microsoft was the big loser of the year, now ranking third, with a market capitalisation of 262.9bn dollars. The main reason for this was the 32bn-dollar special dividend paid out to its shareholders.
The most spectacular development was that of Apple, as the remarkable success of the iPod music player propelled it into FT500 ranking of global companies as this year''s highest newcomer at 159. This marks a return of the company to the ranks of the world''s top companies after falling out of the list in 2001.
Besides Apple, the second most spectacular jump was that of Saudi bank, Samba Financial, the former Saudi American Bank.
The banking sector clearly stands out from the rest of the sectors considered by the FT journalists, with 74 companies whose total market value is worth over 3,000bn dollars. Citigroup remains the first bank in the ranking, having gone up one place to number 4, with a market value of 234.4bn dollars. The only bank in the top 10 besides Citigroup is Bank of America, with a market capitalisation of 178.7bn dollars and ranking 10th.
Meanwhile, the information technology sector continues to lose ground. In 2004, there were 33 IT hardware companies in the rankings, with a combined value of 1,203bn dollars; this time round, there are just 24 companies, valued at 1,031bn dollars.
The revival in business confidence also means that mergers and acquisitions are being undertaken once again. Some well-known names have, accordingly, disappeared from the list since last year, including Bank One (merged with JP Morgan Chase), Aventis (merged with Sanofi-Synthelabo), AT&T Wireless (merged with Cingular Wireless) and Abbey National, bought by Santander Central Hispano of Spain.
Other companies have dropped out of the list for more prosaic reasons. Years of decline means that Marks and Spencer, once a byword of retailing excellence in the UK, no longer qualifies. Two stars of the telecom boom, Nortel Networks and Lucent Technologies are also too small to make the rankings.
In geographical terms, the US still dominates the list, with more than 200 entries. andreea.paun@zf.ro ; cristina.marina@zf.ro
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
