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

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.

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

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.

Logos:

When can an Indian bank rank in global top 10?

Today there is only one bank from India in global top 500 companies by their market value (Dec 2008). There are 81 banks and financial services firms in that list with only entry from India in this sector being SBI. In the top 10 banks there are three companies each from U.S. and China, two from Spain, and one each from Japan and U.K. The tenth largest bank is three times more valued than SBI. Despite of being a trillion dollar economy ranking 12th in world, Indian financial sector has failed to produce a big player at world level so far. This is even when there is huge growth potential for the Indian banks because of emerging economy.

The Indian banking industry is highly fragmented. The consolidation is taking place but there is a big limitation due to most of the banks being in public sector with government as their majority shareholder and controller. There are several restrictions on the operations of these state-owned banks. Moreover mergers and acquisition process within these banks is very difficult. The good part is that government is taking steps towards merging small banks with the bigger ones.

We have looked at the possible players from India which can grow up to the global level. The top three players – SBI, ICICI and HDFC are most likely to be the front-runners in this race. To grow to the size of global giants in terms of assets, and revenues will take more than 10 years for these banks if they pursue organic growth. In such a case, if the Indian economy continues to grow at healthy rate and there are not adverse conditions, SBI could come in global top 10 by 2020-2025. For ICICI and HDFC Bank it should take similar amount of time, as being in private sector they can pursue aggressive growth strategies.

M&A could shorten the journey considerably. After the recent merger of HDFC and Centurion Bank of Punjab, HDFC has been able to gain a wider coverage. M&A activities are likely to happen more often in the private sector banks. However, because of very small size of many private sector banks the incentive to acquire them is not much. Consolidation will still occur because of competitive pressure. A merger of two big players is likely to change the direction of the industry. In the absence of such mergers these banks will be prone to acquisition by foreign banks.

So, in any case it is unlikely for an Indian Bank to get on global top 10’s list in next 5-10 years on the fundamental basis. But on the basis of market capitalization it is still achievable in next 5 years as markets are believed to be ahead of and discount the future.

State Bank of India (SBI) amongst World's top 50 Banks

State Bank of India, the only bank from India to figure in the FT Global 500 list, is amongst the top 50 Banks of the World by market value as on 31 December 2008. The complete list is available here. With a market capitalization of 16.8 billion dollars SBI stands at 43rd rank in the world in comparision to other banks. If Financial Services sector is included SBI ranks 52 with only 0.2 billion dollars less than coming within top 50.

SBI has higher market value than HBOS & Lloyds TSB of U.K., and Wachovia of U.S. It is quite close to U.K.'s fourth largest bank - Barclays which ranks 39 and has market value of 18.5 b$. These ranks are based on market value as on 31 December 2008. Since then Barclays market value has fallen considerably. Today, Barclays has dropped by about 25% to 12 billion dollars. Though market value is changing everyday it is the best measure which ideally(in an efficient market) takes into consideration all the fundmentals of the business.

At todays closing price and exchange rate SBI's market cap is 15.2 billion dollars.

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

World Bank says China and India are 40% smaller

According to a preliminary estimate by World Bank, economies of the two highest growing countries, China and India, are over estimated by about 40%. This estimate is based on purchasing power parity (PPP).

The Chinese economy's new estimate is 5.3 trillion dollar where as it was valued at 8.8 trillion dollars earlier. China is still the second largest economy of the world second only to US and ahead of Japan, Germany and India. China's share of World's GDP is estimated to be 9% which was earlier estimated to be 14%. Japan with 7% of World's GDP is third largest economy.

US contribution to World's GDP has dropped to 23% from 29% using exchange rate data. Still its far ahead of the second largest economy, China.

India's GDP estimate has been reduced from 6% to 4% of World's GDP. Earlier India was ranked fourth, now it has come to fifth with small gap with UK and France. World's economy was also overestimated. Together top five countries comprise of more than half of World's GDP.

The new ranking by World Bank is based on prices of 1000 goods and services. World Bank said that the earlier estimates were less reliable and for the first time China has participated in the World Bank’s International Comparison Program and India has done so first time after 1985.

This is the first major global comparison of this kind using data based on PPP. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, in Beijing, warned that even the new estimate is not totally correct and only reflects prices in the cities. He also said that this should not be used to measure poverty levels. "One has to be extremely careful about trying to draw judgements about poverty based on these statistics," said Zoellick. World Bank said, "These results are more statistically reliable estimates,... ...It was the most extensive and thorough effort ever to measure PPPs across countries." "We're working with the Chinese government to refine that work and as I think that will be out some time next year," he said.

Top 20 Global Commercial & Savings Banks (Fortune)

The global top 20 commercial and saving banks along with their base country as appearing in the Fortune 500 list for 2007 are:

Bank Rank	Financial Institution Name	Country
1	Citigroup	US
2	Crédit Agricole	France
3	Fortis	Belgium/Netherlands
4	Bank of America Corp.	US
5	HSBC Holdings	Britain
6	BNP Paribas	France
7	UBS	Switzerland
8	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	US
9	Deutsche Bank	Germany
10	Dexia Group	Belgium
11	Credit Suisse	Switzerland
12	Société Générale	France
13	Royal Bank of Scotland	Britain
14	HBOS	Britain
15	ABN AMRO Holding	Netherlands
16	Santander Central Hispano Group	Spain
17	Barclays	Britain
18	UniCredit Group	Italy
19	Lloyds TSB Group	Britain
20	Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group	Japan

Britain outscores others in number of banks in top 20 with 25% banks (5 out of 20) based in Britain. The country wise list is:

Country	No. in top Twenty
Britain	5
France	3
US	3
Belgium	2
Netherlands	2
Switzerland	2
Germany	1
Italy	1
Japan	1
Spain	1

Source: Fortune

Can Vikram Pandit, new CEO, rescue Citi?

Citi is having a bad time and so are its management. After the exit of Chuck Prince from the company, Citigroup was in search for a new visionary who could lead the company out of ongoing crisis. No doubt it must have been a tough task to select the CEO of such a large organization. Finally Vikram Pandit has been given the responsibility of chief executive of Citigroup.

Vikram Pandit, an Indian, is 50 year old and is a well respected investment banker. But this is the first time he will be leading a big corporation like citi. Critics doubt whether he could prevent citi from disaster. Pandit is looked as a cautious and conservative banker. Earlier he was Chairman and CEO of Citi's Institutional Clients Group.
Citi website has biography of Mr. Pandit. Some of key points are:"He was a founding member and chairman of the members committee of Old Lane, LP, a multi-strategy hedge fund and private equity fund manager that was acquired by Citi in 2007.
Prior to forming Old Lane, Mr. Pandit was President and Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley's institutional securities and investment banking business and was a member of the firm's Management Committee....

Mr. Pandit earned a PhD in Finance from Columbia University in 1986.... "

After being appointed CEO, Mr. Pandit said:

"During this challenging time, Citi's role in the global markets is more vital than ever. We will address our issues head-on while continuing to deliver value for our clients, shareholders, employees and the communities in which we operate."

Citi's stock prices have fallen by more than 35% during last three months. This is first time in five years that its stock prices went below 30 dollar mark. Earlier citi group had declared huge write-downs of 17 billion dollars and decline in operating profits. Currently citi faces a debt threat and it has done a stake sale worth 7.5 billion dollars to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority last month. Citi is also planning to lay-off 17000 employees to cut costs.

During an interview with Business Week Magazine, Mr Pandit said:

“There are three things I’m focusing on. One, we have to make sure we have the right productivity levels. And that runs the gamut of putting capital to work correctly in the right places.

Job two is to look at every one of our businesses . . . individually and collectively, to make sure they are the right businesses and they are positioned for the future we see in financial services....”