Top 10 global financial centres

As of March 2009, the following is the ranking of the top financial centres of the world as published by GFCI (Global Financial Centres Index):

The GFCI is published by City of London Corporation every March. The full report by GFCI can be found at ZYEN.

	Rank	GFCI rating
London	1	781
New York	2	768
Singapore	3	687
Hong Kong	4	684
Zurich	5	659
Geneva	6	638
Chicago	7	638
Frankfurt	8	633
Boston	9	618
Dublin	10	618

London, the financial hub of the world, has been at the helm since long time. London, also the banking centre of the world, has headquarters of more than 100 of European's 500 biggest companies.

Performance of Indian investment banks and brokerage firms

This article in continuation to the previous post on Top Investment banks, brokerage companies of India. Here we have looked at few fundamentals of these companies mainly their revenues and profits. It should be noted that the comparison is not perfect because many of these firms have multiple business whereas others are just into investment banking or brokerage. In terms of ttm (trailing twelve months) revenues the standings are:

	Mkt Cap.	Sales
India Infoline	13.1	7.95
Indiabulls Securities	4.8	6.26
Edelweiss Capital	17.9	2.29
Geojit Fin Serv	4.9	1.79
Emkay Global	0.8	1.34
Apollo Sindhoori	2.9	1.14
Future Capital	9.9	1.00
Motilal Oswal	9.0	0.72
JM Financial	15.8	0.52
Centrum Capital	11.1	0.46
IL & FS Investmart	4.6	0.31
Religare Enterprises Limited	24.5	0.29

The table below shows the same companies in order of their ttm earnings.

	Sales	Profit	Margin
Indiabulls Securities	6.26	2.23	36%
India Infoline	7.95	1.85	23%
Motilal Oswal	0.72	0.44	60%
Edelweiss Capital	2.29	0.26	11%
Geojit Fin Serv	1.79	0.25	14%
JM Financial	0.52	0.25	48%
Apollo Sindhoori	1.14	0.15	13%
Emkay Global	1.34	0.13	10%
Centrum Capital	0.46	0.12	27%
IL & FS Investmart	0.31	0.07	23%
Religare Enterprises Limited	0.29	-0.05	-16%
Future Capital	1.00	-0.06	-6%

In comparison to their market value how these company fare is shown below.

	Price	EPS Rs.	P/E
Indiabulls Securities	19	8.8	2.2
India Infoline	46	6.5	7.1
Motilal Oswal	63	3.1	20.5
Edelweiss Capital	239	3.4	69.8
Geojit Fin Serv	24	1.2	19.8
JM Financial	21	0.3	0.0
Apollo Sindhoori	52	2.7	19.1
Emkay Global	32	5.5	5.8
Centrum Capital	1,625	17.9	91.1
IL & FS Investmart	65	1.0	62.7
Religare Enterprises Limited	321	loss
Future Capital	157	loss

It is interesting to note that the highest valued firm in this category, Religare, has the least revenues of them and has reported loss in last quarter. However, being promoted by a well established group it is expected to grow fast and gain market share. This may be one reason why it is trading at high multiples.

Top 50 Banks of the World by market value

Recently, I was searching for the list of World's top ten banks. I couldn't find any such recent ranking available on free domain. So, I went to the FT's Global 500 (December 2008) list companies and sorted Banks and Financial Services companies. FT publishes top 500 companies based on their market value at the end of every quarter. This list takes the value as on 31 Dec 2008. Here goes the list:

	Company	Country	MCap $b
1	Indl & Coml Bank of China	China	173.9
2	China Construction Bank	China	128.3
3	JP Morgan Chase	US	117.7
4	HSBC	UK	115.2
5	Bank of China	China	98.2
6	Wells Fargo	US	98.0
7	Banco Santander	Spain	75.0
8	Bank of America	US	70.6
9	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial	Japan	70.1
10	BBVA	Spain	45.1
11	Intesa Sanpaolo	Italy	44.1
12	U. S. Bancorp	US	43.6
13	UBS	Switzerland	40.9
14	Royal Bank Canada	Canada	40.9
15	BNP Paribas	France	38.3
16	Citigroup	US	36.6
17	Bank of Communications	China	34.6
18	Westpac Banking	Australia	34.1
19	Sumitomo Mitsui Financial	Japan	32.7
20	Unicredito Italiano	Italy	32.4
21	Mizuho Financial	Japan	31.8
22	Banco Itau	Brazil	30.8
23	Credit Suisse	Switzerland	30.4
24	Toronto Dominion Bank	Canada	29.8
25	Commonwealth Bank of Australia	Australia	29.6
26	Societe Generale	France	29.1
27	Bradesco	Brazil	28.0
28	Royal Bank of Scotland	UK	28.0
29	National Australia Bank	Australia	27.2
30	Bank of Nova Scotia	Canada	27.2
31	China Merchants Bank	China	26.4
32	Hang Seng Bank	Hong Kong	25.1
33	Credit Agricole	France	24.8
34	Standard Chartered	UK	23.8
35	ANZ Banking	Australia	23.0
36	Al Rahji Banking	Saudi Arabia	22.4
37	Deutsche Bank	Germany	22.1
38	China CITIC Bank	China	19.3
39	Barclays	UK	18.5
40	Nordea Bank	Sweden	18.0
41	PNC Financial Services	US	17.1
42	Resona Holdings	Japan	16.9
43	State Bank Of India	India	16.8
44	Banco Brasil	Brazil	16.0
45	Sberbank of Russia	Russia	16.0
46	UniBanco	Brazil	15.8
47	CIBC	Canada	15.8
48	Lloyds TSB	UK	15.5
49	BB&T	US	15.2
50	Standard Bank Group	South Africa	13.7

Source: FT

This was the list of Banks. FT also has a sector category of financial services which may be quite related to Banks. Here is that list:

1	Goldman Sachs	US	33.4
2	Bank of New York Mellon	US	32.5
3	Visa	US	23.5
4	American Express	US	21.5
5	Charles Schwab	US	18.7
6	Merrill Lynch	US	18.6
7	CITIC Securities	China	17.5
8	Morgan Stanley	US	17.0
9	State Street Corporation	US	17.0
10	BlackRock	US	15.9
11	Nomura	Japan	15.8
12	Itausa	Brazil	15.5
13	Franklin Resources	US	14.8
14	MasterCard	US	14.1
15	Chicago Mercantile Exchange	US	13.9
16	Deutsche Boerse	Germany	13.8

Source: FT