The world's local bank
HSBC moves up global company rankings
15 July 2003
HSBC has risen significantly in rankings of the world’s largest businesses, published in the July issues of BusinessWeek, Forbes and The Banker magazines.
BusinessWeek magazine's top 1,000 enterprises list for 2003 puts HSBC in 14th place, a rise of eight places on last year's position.
In an interview with the magazine, HSBC’s new CEO Stephen Green said: “In the past 12 months, we have taken advantage of some important opportunities to grow.” Despite unstable economic conditions HSBC has made a series of successful acquisitions, most recently US consumer finance provider Household International.
The magazine also noted that: “A conservative financial position, cautious management, and a strong balance sheet helped HSBC during the long bear-market.”
BusinessWeek’s table ranks the world's top companies by market capitalisation. This is the value of a company obtained by multiplying the number of its issued shares by their market price. According to BusinessWeek, HSBC's market capitalisation on 30 May 2003 was US$126.97 billion, making it the second largest bank in the world.
In BusinessWeek's country rankings, also measured by market capitalisation, HSBC is the third largest company in Britain, behind oil giant BP and mobile telecoms company Vodafone.
By contrast, Forbes magazine’s Global 2000 list is based on a composite ranking of sales, profits, assets and market value, and in this survey HSBC lies in ninth position. The Forbes list includes companies from 46 countries, with total revenues of US$18 trillion, assets of US$65 trillion and profits of US$492 billion.
Forbes’ ranking puts HSBC as the world’s third biggest bank, and the UK’s second largest company.
The Banker magazine’s survey focuses on the world’s top banks during 2002. Although US banks dominate the rankings, HSBC features in the top ten for tier one capital, total assets and market capitalisation rankings.
In terms of tier one capital, a measure of the financial viability of an organisation, HSBC is the third richest bank with US$38.9 billion. By total assets, HSBC lies seventh with US$759.2 billion, the only UK bank in the top ten.
As with BusinessWeek’s ranking, HSBC is the world’s second largest bank in terms of market capitalisation. According to The Banker, HSBC’s value has increased from US$106 billion in July 2002 to US$133 billion at present, putting it clearly at the top of the banking sector in Western Europe.
In all of rankings published this month, HSBC has demonstrated the success it has had in 2002 and 2003. With the acquisition of Household International and increased exposure to the North American market, next year will hopefully mean further progress up the rankings.
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