The Largest Companies in the World

The Global 5000 is a database of the largest companies in the world (ranked by revenue). It contains both public and private firms from all industries in all countries in the world.

You will find updates and key figures on The Global 5000 web site.

The Global 5000 Companies Revenue Growth — where to now?

As we have been updating Global 5000 company revenue numbers for 2013, we are struck but the tail off in growth between 2012 and 2013.

These big firms were reporting strong growth in the couple of years leading up to the recession, clipping along at 13% and then 7%. The recession hit and revenue dropped by 9% in 2009. The recovery was terrific for the biggest companies in the world with 11+% growth in those ensuing recovery years.  Looking back at 2012, the Global 5000 revenue only grew by just over 3% and then nearly flat last year.

So, what happens when we see these shifts?

• For one, there is an uptick in M&A activity which we have seen in 2014 as companies look for ways to find revenue.
• We also see more spin-offs and divestitures as large firms focus on profitability and looking at ways to focus the company efforts on core businesses.
• As revenues slow, there is more pressure on expenses include personnel costs and hiring slows. We see an increase in the revenue per employee as employers find other means to get the job done – technology, outsourcing, etc.
• This leaves the mid size and smaller firms to generate most of the job growth, changing the shape of businesses.

This is, indeed, a very interesting indicator to watch.

For more information on The Global 5000 database and companies in it – visit the website.

 

M&A Activity and New Companies Added to The Global 5000 in May 2014

Lots of activity on the M&A front during May 2014 highlighted by all the buzz about Apple’s acquisition of Beats headphones.  Another hotspot was the ongoing jockeying in the food business between Hillshire Brands, Pinnacle Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride

You can see a full list of all 26 major corporate activities this past month in this article.

In addition to those activities, 13 new companies (including Twitter) were added to The Global 5000 database. View this list as well as other related posts on our web site – The Global 5000.

 

Updates and New Global 5000 Companies – April 2014

Each month, companies in The Global 5000 database are updated to reflect new financial filings and employee counts.  In addition to updating the records in the database, we added a number of new firms as well as updating the database for mergers and acquisitions.

• 19 new companies were added to the database during April including.
  • Allegion plc
  • Avianca Holdings S.A.
  • Fujisankei Communications Group  (FCG)
  • GoPro

  The the full list of companies is posted in the article on the web site.

• There were another 21 mergers, acquisitions and other significant events noted in the past month.

A full list of the companies added and the M&A deals are noted in this article on our web site.

Updates and New Global 5000 Companies – March 2014

During the 1st quarter of 2014, a total of 933 records were updated in The Global 5000 database.  In addition to updating the records in the database, we added a number of new firms as well as updating the database for mergers and acquisitions.

• 16 new companies were added to the database during March. The the full list of companies is posted in the article on the web site.

• There were another 21 mergers, acquisitions and other significant events noted in the past month.

A full list of the companies added and the M&A deals are noted in this article on our web site.

 

The Biggest of The Global 5000

From a market planning perspective, keeping track of the big players in any market segment will provide a pretty good picture of the size, shape and direction of a market. One can see that using The Global 5000 database and looking at each industry/vertical segment compared to all the companies in that industry. We wanted to look at how the biggest of the big look when compared to the rest of the companies in their industry.  To do that, we examined the largest companies in each of 20 different industries in the database.

We looked at 2 factors – revenue per employee and growth (CAGR) between 2009 and 2012 to see if the leaders outpace the rest of the market (albeit, it is the large Global 5000 firms). The answer is – yes, it does matter.

For the full article — visit The Global 5000 website

New Updates for The Global 5000 – February 2014

As we do every month, in addition to updating the records in the database, we added a number of new firms as well as updating the database for mergers and acquisitions.

• 24 new companies were added to the database during February with the full list of companies posted in the article.

• There were another 14 mergers and acquisition announced – including Sony selling off it’s Vaio PC business.

A full list of the companies added and the M&A deals are noted in this article on our web site.

The Largest Private Companies in the World

The Global 5000 companies contains both public and private companies.  We have made a file available of the largest 500 companies (by revenue) in the world. There is also a separate set of companies that are larger government entities.

This is where you can access the database of the 500 largest Private companies

New Updates for The Global 5000 – January 2014

With the month of January in the books, we tallied the activity of the major companies plus new firms added to the database.

Ten new companies were added to the database during January

There were another 16 mergers and acquisition announced – including the two big Lenovo Group deals. Lenovo will be acquiring IBM’s low end server group and in the same month announced they will be acquiring the Motorola handset division that Google had acquired just a couple years ago.

A full list of the companies added and the M&A deals are noted in this article on our web site.

Don’t Overlook Lenovo – they just spent $5 billion

A lot of industry buzz this week is about Google selling off its Motorola handset division to Lenovo.  Most of the articles and assessments are positive as Google was never a hardware manufacturer and consensus seems to be that they can now get back to their mainstream focus of web, search and information. Most articles barely mention Lenovo, a company that is shelling out $3 billion.

Did they all forget that just last week, Lenovo agreed to a deal with IBM where Lenovo will acquire IBM’s low end server business. That deal was worth $2.3 billion.

Don’t look now, but Lenovo is #358 on The Global 5000 ranking of the largest companies in the world.  They have grown from a $14 billion firm in 2008 to over $33 billion in 2012.  In addition to IBM’s ThinkPad pc business and these new acquisitions, they (like many tech firms) have now developed a separate cloud hosting business AND will take over service and maintenance for this IBM server line … giving them all those contacts and connections.

Lenovo may not have captured the headlines in the IBM server deal or the Google handset deal, but they are one to pay close attention to.

For more information on The Global 5000 companies and database, visit the web site.