Top 10 banks in the world by market value as on March 2010

About a year back we posted an article on the largest banks in world by market capitalization as on Feb 26, 2009. At that time I was searching for the list of the biggest banks but couldn't find it on internet for free. So, I had to find the market cap of the big banks in the world (finding the names of banks wasn't that difficult). 

Recently, I came across the list of biggest companies in the world by their market value published by Financial Times (FT). The list was comprehensive and has details like country and sector so finding the top 10 banks was a very easy thing now. Here's the top ten banks as on March 2010:

Rank	Company	Country
1	Industrial and Commercial Bank of China	China
2	China Construction Bank	China
3	Bank of America	US
4	JP Morgan Chase	US
5	HSBC	UK
6	Wells Fargo & Co	US
7	Bank of China	China
8	Citigroup	US
9	Banco Santander	Spain
10	BNP Paribas	France

There have been few changes in the list to what we published in Feb 2009. As the global financial situation witnessed some improvement, the American banks have regained some of their lost market capitalization thereby helping them to improve their rankings. Compared to Feb 2009 when the top 10 list had four banks  from China, two from US and one each from Italy, Japan, Spain and UK, in Mar 2010 there were four banks from US, three from China and one each from UK, Spain and France. However, the Chinese banks still hold the top two slots. This might be because the American banks although bigger than Chinese are yet to fully recover from the financial crisis that had hit the investor's confidence, while Chinese banks being  in an emerging economy also commands high valuations. However, what came in surprising is that in the list of top 500 companies in the world there were only seven American Banks, while China has nine banks in top 500. This appears to be bit on the lower side for the country with most number of banks  (as per Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation US had 7895 FDIC insured institution as on May 2010) and a highly advanced banking system. Is it because of consolidation in the US banking sector or investor's lack of confidence in smaller banks given the recent series of bank failures.

Country	No. of Banks in Top 500 Global Companies
China	9
US	7
Canada	5
UK	5
Australia	4
Brazil	4
France	3
India	3
Japan	3
Singapore	3

Data Source: Global Top 500 

Top 10 Hedge fund management firms by assets under management

Bridgewater Associates	1
JPMorgan	2
Paulson & Co.	3
D. E. Shaw	4
Brevan Howard	5
Och-Ziff Capital Management	6
Man AHL	7
Soros Fund Management	8
Goldman Sachs	9
Renaissance Technologies	10

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.

Top Bank holding companies in US by total domestic deposits

The biggest domestic deposit banks on June 30, 2008 as per the data published by FDIC were:

Bank Name	Deposits (Jun 2008) billion $
BoA Corp	701.5
JP Morgan Chase	497.2
Wachovia	422.0
Wells Fargo	293.4
Citigroup	271.3
US Bancorp	127.8
Suntrust Bank	115.6
National City Corp	97.8
RBS	95.3
Toronto-Dominion Bank	89.8

Of these the last two were foreign banks. In all there were 12 foreign banks in the top 50 list.

	Bank Name	Deposits (Jun 2008) billion $
1	RBS Group	95.3
2	Toronto-Dominion Bank	89.8
3	HSBC Holdings	83.0
4	Banco Santander	53.8
5	BNP Paribas	43.9
6	Mitsubishi UFJ	42.0
7	BBVA	39.4
8	Allied Irish Bank	36.5
9	Bank of Montreal	29.1
10	UBS	24.4
11	Royal Bank of Canada	17.8
12 Source:	Deutsche Bank FDIC	15.2

47 Indian companies in Forbes 2000 List

The following 47 companies have figured into the Forbes 2000 list:

Company	Sector
Reliance Industries	Oil & Gas Operations
SBI	Banking
ONGC	Oil & Gas Operations
IOCL	Oil & Gas Operations
NTPC	Utilities
ICICI Bank	Banking
Tata Steel	Materials
Bharti Airtel	Telecommunications
SAIL	Materials
Reliance Communications	Telecommunications Services
L&T	Capital Goods
BPCL	Oil & Gas Operations
BHEL	Capital Goods
HDFC	Banking
TCS	Software & Services
Hindalco Industries	Materials
HDFC Bank	Banking
DLF	Diversified Financials
Infosys Technologies	Software & Services
Punjab National Bank	Banking
ITC	Food, Drink & Tobacco
Wipro	Software & Services
Bank of India	Banking
HPCL	Oil & Gas Operations
GAIL (India)	Utilities
NMDC	Materials
Canara Bank	Banking
Power Grid of India	Utilities
Tata Motors	Capital Goods
Bank of Baroda	Banking
Power Finance	Finance
Axis Bank	Banking
Union Bank of India	Banking
Grasim Industries	Construction
Indian Overseas Bank	Banking
Sun Pharma Industries	Drugs & Biotechnology
Mahindra & Mahindra	Consumer Durables
Allahabad Bank	Banking
Indian Bank	Banking
Syndicate Bank	Banking
IDBI Bank	Banking
Central Bank of India	Banking
Jindal Steel & Power	Materials
National Aluminium	Materials
Oriental Bank of Commerce	Banking
UCO Bank	Banking
Hero Honda Motors	Consumer Durables

Rank	Companies	Sales (b $)
121	Reliance Industries	34.03
150	State Bank of India Group	22.63
152	Oil & Natural Gas Corp	24.04
207	Indian Oil Corp Ltd	51.66
317	NTPC	9.63
329	ICICI Bank	15.06
463	Tata Steel	32.77
508	Bharti Airtel	6.73
582	Steel Authority of India	9.82
689	Reliance Communications	4.26

Forbes global 2000 list is published every year and takes into consideration the assets, sales, profits, and market capitalization of the corporations.

Source: Forbes

Financial institutions with highest revenues in world

Once again from the Forbes 2000 list(published on 8th April 2009), the biggest turnover companies in the Financial services domain are as follows:

	Company	Industry	Sales ($bil)
1	ING Group	Insurance	213.99
2	Fortis	Diversified Fin.	164.37
3	AXA Group	Insurance	156.95
4	HSBC Holdings	Banking	142.05
5	Allianz	Insurance	127.24
6	Deutsche Bank	Diversified Fin.	124.78
7	Generali Group	Insurance	118.39
8	Bank of America	Banking	113.11
9	BNP Paribas	Banking	107.96
10	Berkshire Hathaway	Diversified Fin.	107.79
11	Crédit Agricole	Banking	107.75
12	Citigroup	Banking	106.66
13	JPMorgan Chase	Banking	101.49
14	Société Générale	Banking	99.25

While the world's top three companies Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, and Wal-Mart have annual sales more than 400 billion dollars, the biggest financial institution, insurance major - ING Group generates about half the revenues. In the banking sector this is even lower with the biggest being HSBC holdings at 142 billion dollars.
For the complete list of 2000 companies, please visit Forbes.

Top 10 banks by assets (2009)

About two months back when I had tried compiling a list of world's top banks by asssets, the task was not easy. The main reasons being that full year results of all companies were not out. Also, all the firms don't report their numbers in dollars using a point-in-time exchange rates was debatable. However, recently Forbes had published the list of world's top 2000 companies. Great!, so now I know who stands where without much efforts :). If we go by the Forbes numbers (which I beleive should be correct), the top 10 companies in the whole world when put in the order of their balance sheet size are as follows:

Rank	Company	Country	Assets ($bil)
1	Royal Bank of Scotland	United Kingdom	3491
2	Barclays	United Kingdom	2948
3	Deutsche Bank	Germany	2947
4	BNP Paribas	France	2889
5	HSBC Holdings	United Kingdom	2520
6	JPMorgan Chase	United States	2175
7	Crédit Agricole	France	2064
8	Citigroup	United States	1939
9	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial	Japan	1931
10	UBS	Switzerland	1899

No surprise these are all banks or financial institutions. Banks have a slightly different way of accounting and the public deposits form a significant part of their assets. As a matter of fact in the top 50 companies only two companies, GE(ranked 28th) and Deutsche Post (ranked 49th), are outside the financial domain. While GE's presence in top 50 was expected, Deutsche Post at 49th position was a bit of surprise for me.

For the complete list of 2000 companies, please visit Forbes.
Source: Forbes, Google Finance, Reuters.

Top 10 banks of the world by market capitalization (April 2009)

Bank	Country	Mkt Cap on Apr 30, 2009
Indl & Coml Bank of China	China	197
China Construction Bank	China	133
JP Morgan Chase	US	124
HSBC	UK	123
Bank of China	China	120
Wells Fargo	US	85
Banco Santander	Spain	73
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial	Japan	63
Goldman Sachs	US	59
Bank of America	US	57

World's top 6 safest banks are still the safest!!

The financial crisis has taken a toll on major banks leaving many top notch banks like America's Citibank, UK's Barclays etc. in never before situation. However, the top 6 safest bank as published by Global Finance Magazine has remained the same during this crisis. Have a look at the top 6 safest banks their ranks in the period 2004-2009.

2009	2008	2006	2004	Bank	Country
1		4	3	KfW Group	Germany
2	1	1	1	Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations	France
3	2	2	5	Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten	Netherlands
4	3	5	6	Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank	Germany
5	4	3	7	Rabobank	Netherlands
6	5	6	2	Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg - Foerderbank	Germany

Global Finance ranks the banks on the basis of their credit rating as provided by the rating agencies Fitch, Moody's, and S&P. These banks have the highest credit rating of AAA from Fitch & S&P, and Aaa from Moody's. The rating corresponds to the maximum credit worthiness and has lowest risk of default.

The size of the balance sheet of these safest banks is however not of the order of the biggest banks like RBS, Deutsche bank, etc.

Bank	Total Assets billion USD
KfW Group	521
Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations	289
Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten	136
Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank	131
Rabobank	840
Landeskreditbank Baden-Wuerttemberg - Foerderbank	87

A comparison with the biggest banks:

Bank	Total Assets billion USD
Royal Bank of Scotland Group	3,807
Deutsche Bank Group	2,974
BNP Paribas	2,494
Barclays	2,459
HSBC	2,354

The asset data is as on Dec 31, 2007.
Source: Global Finance

Despite decline in oil prices Exxon Mobil replaces Wal-Mart as biggest company in 2008

The Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporates is out and there are few changes in the top 10 ranks with the top most rank now occupied by Exxon Mobil. Bank of America & Citigroup are out of top ten list with Hewlett-Packard and Valero Energy making place in the top 10. The Fortune rankings are based on revenues of companies in the year 2008.

2008 Rank	2009 Rank	Company	Revenues billion $
2	1	Exxon Mobil	443
1	2	Wal-Mart Stores	406
3	3	Chevron	263
5	4	ConocoPhillips	231
6	5	General Electric	183
4	6	General Motors	149
7	7	Ford Motor	146
10	8	AT&T	124
14	9	Hewlett-Packard	118
16	10	Valero Energy	118

Exxon Mobil made a huge leap forward to make its narrow trail behind Wal-Mart in 2007 a big lead ahead of it in 2008. Its revenues increased by 19%, remarkable for a company of such size and sharp decline in crude oil prices. While Wal-Mart can't be blamed for losing its position as its revenues increased at 7% when the economy halted. Amongst the new top 10 list only the two Auto-majors GM and Ford showed declining revenues.

	Company	Revenues (bil $)
		2009	2008	growth
1	Exxon Mobil	443	373	19%
2	Wal-Mart Stores	406	379	7%
3	Chevron	263	211	25%
4	ConocoPhillips	231	179	29%
5	General Electric	183	177	4%
6	General Motors	149	182	-18%
7	Ford Motor	146	172	-15%
8	AT&T	124	119	4%
9	Hewlett-Packard	118	104	13%
10	Valero Energy	118	97	22%

The profit figures give a better indication of the state of the economy with 4 out of 6 companies suffering losses. While GM and Ford continued their losses from last year, the other two loss reporting firms were impacted by the slowdown in this year only.

Rank	Company	Profits (bil $)
		2009	2008	growth
1	Exxon Mobil	45	41	11%
2	Wal-Mart Stores	13	13	5%
3	Chevron	24	19	28%
4	ConocoPhillips	-17	12	-243%
5	General Electric	17	22	-22%
6	General Motors	-31	-39	-
7	Ford Motor	-15	-3	-
8	AT&T	13	12	8%
9	Hewlett-Packard	8	7	15%
10	Valero Energy	-1	5	-122%

For the full list of Fortune 500 companies, please visit Fortune 500.

Head of the top Banks in India

Public Sector Banks
State Bank of India Shri O.P. Bhatt Chairman
Punjab National Bank Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty Chairman and Managing Director
Bank of India Shri T.S. Narayanasami Chairman and Managing Director
Bank of Baroda Shri. M. D. Mallya Chairman & Managing Director
Union Bank of India Shri M.V.Nair Chairman & Managing Director
Canara Bank SRI. A. C. Mahajan Chairman & Managing Director
Indian Bank Shri M S Sundara Rajan Chairman & Managing Director
Private Sector Banks
ICICI Bank Ms Chanda Kochhar Managing Director & CEO (effective May 1, 2009)
HDFC Mr. Jagdish Capoor Chairman
Mr. Aditya Puri MD
Axis Bank Ms. Shikha Sharma CEO
Kotak Mahindra Bank Mr. Uday Kotak Executive Vice Chairman & Managing Director

Tech Mahindra's acquisition of Satyam could change the Indian IT league

Continuation from previous post on Tech Mahindra's bid for Satyam
Currently, the top 10 players in the Indian IT industry (by revenues) are:

		Net Sales	Profit
		Rs. Crore	Rs. Crore
1	TCS	18534	4,509
2	Wipro	17493	3,063
3	Infosys	15648	4,470
4	Satyam*	8137	1,716
5	HCL Tech.	3769	1,102
6	Tech Mahindra	3605	326
7	Oracle Fin. (iFlex)	1793	411
8	Mphasis	1452	265
9	Financial Tech.	1254	961
10	Patni Computers	1172	388

* as per the latest audited data which may be subject to change after the revised audit by new auditors.

The top 3 players were at a much higher level compared to others. The combined revenues of Tech Mahindra and Satyam will reduce the gap and the combined entity could pose a serious threat to the top 3 in the medium to long run. However, in the short run there are strong challenges for Tech Mahindra. Retaining customers of Satyam is a crucial factor and Tech Mahindra will be doing every bit to save each customer. Besides other M&A related issues, managing diverse domain businesses will be tough task for senior management.
If managed well the synergies between the two companies can pose serious threat to TCS, Infosys and Wipro. Tech Mahindra's promoter British Telecom (BT) has businesses with all the top 3 companies and its business with Infosys is 6% of Infosys' total revenues. With Satyam in Tech Mahindra's kitty it could as well provided those services to BT which Infosys, TCS and WIpro are providing currently. Moreover its automotive IT business can be positively impacted because of Mahindra group's automobile business.

Top 10 stainless steel producers in world

The top 10 producers of Stainless steel in the world as in 2008 were (not in order):

ArcelorMittal	The Netherlands
Acerinox	Spain
ThyssenKrupp Stainless	Germany
TISCO	China
POSCO	South Korea
Outokumpu	Finland
AK Steel	USA
NSSC	Japan
YUSCO	Taiwan
INI Steel	South Korea
Allegheny	USA

The top six players by installed capacity in 2008 were:

SS Slab Capacity	Million MTA*
ArcelorMittal	3.16
Acerinox	2.9
ThyssenKrupp Stainless	2.9
TISCO	2.6
POSCO	2.6
Outokumpu	2.55

*Million MTA - Million Metric Tonnes per Annum

Top 10 banks in the world by assets

The assets of some of the biggest banks of the world (from latest available balance sheet) is as follows:

Bank	Assets (million)	Currency	Date
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group	24,01,650	GBP	31-12-2008
Deutsche Bank	20,60,690	EUR	30-09-2008
BNP Paribas SA	20,75,550	EUR	31-12-2008
Barclays PLC	13,65,650	GBP	30-06-2008
Crédit Agricole SA	15,08,500	EUR	30-09-2008
UBS AG	19,96,720	CHF	30-09-2008
Société Générale	11,30,000	EUR	31-12-2008
UniCredit SpA	10,52,840	EUR	30-09-2008
ING Bank NV	13,75,810	EUR	30-09-2008
Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd	19,06,56,992	JPY	30-09-2008
Banco Santander SA	9,53,035	EUR	30-09-2008
JPMorgan Chase Bank	21,75,050	USD	31-12-2008
Bank of America NA	18,17,940	USD	31-12-2008
Citibank NA	19,45,260	USD	31-12-2008
HSBC Holdings	25,46,680	USD	30-06-2008
Credit Suisse Group	13,93,600	CHF	30-09-2008

The prevailing exchange rate of different currencies with USD:

EUR	1.2563
GBP	1.4044
JPY	0.01015
CHF	0.84933

At these rates the top 10 banks by assets when converted to USD are following:

	Assets trillion $
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group	3.37
BNP Paribas	2.61
Deutsche Bank	2.59
HSBC Holdings	2.55
JPMorgan Chase Bank	2.18
Citibank NA	1.95
Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd	1.94
Barclays PLC	1.92
Crédit Agricolé SA	1.90
Bank of America	1.82

Top 10 banks in the world by market capitalization as on Feb 26, 2009

The top 10 banks in the world by their market value as on yesterday (Feb 26, 2009) are presented in this article. The top three slots are occupied by banks from China. The other banks in top 5 are HSBC of UK, and American bank JPMC, the two being very close in market value.

In the top 10 list four banks are from China, two from US and one each from Italy, Japan, Spain and UK.

	Bank	Country	Mkt Cap bil. USD
1	ICBC	China	169.6
2	China Construction Bank	China	118.4
3	Bank of China	China	103.2
4	HSBC	UK	91.4
5	JP Morgan Chase	US	90.0
6	Wells Fargo	US	62.6
7	Banco Santander	Spain	53.6
8	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial	Japan	52.5
9	Bank of Communications	China	34.6
10	Intesa Sanpaolo	Italy	31.8

Because of the financial crisis the market capitalization of most of the US banks has eroded heavily leaving only two banks from the country in the top 10 valued banks of the world. The top 10 banks at the end of previous year (Dec, 2008) as mentioned in an earlier article had three US banks.

	Bank	Country	Mkt Cap
1	ICBC	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

The market value of Bank of America had fallen to 28.6 billion USD (26 Feb '08) from 70.6 (31 Dec '09) and falls short of top 10. The last two months have not been good for the equity markets and the bear market started in 2008 is continuing. The banks in the developed countries are most hit with many of them falling more than 20% in last two months.

	Bank	Mkt Cap 26 Feb '09	Mkt Cap 31 Dec '08	Change
	ICBC	169.6	173.9	-2.5%
	China Construction Bank	118.4	128.3	-7.7%
	Bank of China	103.2	98.2	5.1%
	HSBC	91.4	115.2	-20.7%
	JP Morgan Chase	90.0	117.7	-23.6%
	Wells Fargo	62.6	98.0	-36.1%
	Banco Santander	53.6	75.0	-28.6%
	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial	52.5	70.1	-25.2%
	Bank of Communications	34.6	34.6	0.1%
	Intesa Sanpaolo	31.8	44.1	-28.0%

The Chinese banks have been able to resist the fall and the China Construction Bank was the worst hit with a 7.7% decline in value.

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