There are many ways to rank companies based on their performance—be it sales growth, income, earning per share, return to shareholders, or a combination of a number of measures. In addition to ranking the largest companies worldwide, Fortune magazine also produces rankings of those companies in the Fortune 500 list that are growing the fastest—by revenue and by profits. Forbes has its own ranking of global high-performers—which evaluates companies on the Forbes 2000 list for long-term and short-term sales growth, profit growth, return on capital, total return to shareholders, and earnings forecasts. Fortune finds Old Mutual top for revenue For the Fortune ranking, corporate revenue data includes consolidated subsidiaries and reported revenues from discontinued operations but exclude excise taxes. For banks, revenue is the sum of gross interest income and gross noninterest income. For insurance companies, revenue includes premium and annuity income, investment income, realized capital gains or losses, and other income, but excludes deposits. Leading the list by revenue growth is the Old Mutual insurance company from the UK. It saw an astounding 39000% growth in revenue between 2008 and 2009. However, given the extreme nature of this figure, we removed Old Mutual from our chart, above, in order to be able to model the rest of the data and create a workable picture of the results. The Old Mutual result is indicative of one of the difficulties with solely using revenue as a guide for growth. The company had such an extreme result due to a low overall revenue figure in 2008 and regular revenue figures in 2009, rather than as a result of extensive new growth in revenue in 2009. AIG from the US came in second, with an 829% increase in revenue, followed by Aegon—out of The Netherlands—with a 485% increase in revenue.
At the top of the list by profit growth was Ping An Insurance from China, which grew profits by more than 5000% between 2008 and 2009. Russia’s Sistema came second, with 2500% profit growth, and in third was Shanghai Automotive—out of China—with a 1900% increase in profits. Italy’s Gruppo Mediolanum was the highest-ranked company appearing on both lists—ranking 5th by profit growth and 4th by revenue growth. With the Fortune ranking, it is important to note that many factors can affect revenue growth, and the ranking is a snapshot that simply examines how revenue has changed over the period. Fortune magazine also produces a list of the fastest growing companies worldwide that is not connected to its Global 500 list. Growth is calculated by a combination of EPS growth, revenue growth and total return based on a three year annualized rate, and must meet certain specific stock listing, market capitalization, revenue and income requirements. The company that tops this list for 2010 is Canadian mining outfit Eldorado Gold. Following in the next three spots are US coffee distributor Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, US IT consulting and outsourcing firm Ebix, and another US IT outfit-salesforce.com. The top four companies all have greater than 70% EPS growth, 40% or greater revenue growth, and total return over 25% for the period evaluated.
Forbes ranks by industry In the Forbes list of the Global High Performers, it ranks companies based on the industry they are in—rather than creating a single list. Lockheed Martin, for example, comes top in the Aerospace and Defense category, and French bank BNP Paribas tops the Banking category with estimated EPS growth of 25%. Belgian company AB InBev tops the Food, Drink & Tobacco category, with five-year sales growth forecast at 25% and net income growth forecast at 35.7%. In Oil & Gas Operations, Brazilian firm Petrobras comes top, with a five-year annualized total return of 36.3%. In the Retail space Best Buy comes out on top for growth and profitability.
Data is from Fortune Global 500 - Top Companies, July 2010. | 
Tools 
RSS
Feeds