Where can I find a list of the largest companies in various countries?

January 2, 2006 3:03 PM

Global500Filter: I'm trying to find lists of the 20 largest companies in various countries — the Fortune 500 on a global scale. My interest is primarily the largest companies in individual countries in the developing world, with a focus on Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Is there a central resource that might have this type of information?
posted by jed to work & money (5 comments total)

There's the FT500, "The top 500 companies ranked globally and by sector based on market capital".

...though I keep hitting subscription walls before I can get to the list.
posted by pompomtom at 4:44 PM on January 2, 2006

Not exactly what you asked for, jed, but the World Bank site has a shitload of economic information on just about every developing country. (Also see the section on the Bank's Country Offices.)

Wolfie, you're doing a heckuva job! (sarcasm)
posted by rob511 at 6:27 PM on January 2, 2006

Your local business library will have the info you need. Two useful tools that they'll have are "Dun & Bradstreet's guide to doing business around the world" and STAT-USA. STAT-USA in particular is really good for getting market and company reports of various countries. Also, the EIU (Economist Intelligence Reports country reports) have a lot of this data. But the EIU charges up the wazoo for these, so not all libraries have them.

(note: the online Economist site -- http://www.economist.com/countries/index.cfm -- has a mix of basic reports on developed and some undeveloped countries; they don't really have this specific information, but they do have a lot of links to various country's stat sites and business organizations that, in many cases, have such info. Requires some digging.)

The Fortune Global 500 online shows you the rank of the top 500 world companies within various countries.

A couple of free online sources, though, that can be helpful, (but lack data on some countries...usually, unfortunately for you, the smaller and less-developed, the less info) are:

http://www.transnationale.org/
-- reasonably reputable international business site that has the top companies for various countries.

http://www.hoovers.com/free/tools/bcl/
-- Hoovers is very good, but doesn't give you much for free. This site allows you to get a list of companies that make over X dollars or have more than X number of employees, but the lists don't give much information. But it's a very good start, and you can get company names for a start on specific company research.
posted by croctommy at 9:50 PM on January 2, 2006

My library has composed a bunch of research guides that may be helpful to you. While some of them link to material behind our intranet, they can help you in your search at your local library.

http://library.hbs.edu/guides/
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:37 AM on January 3, 2006

I look for this sort of info for part of my job. Most info is not free, nor is any one source complete. It is difficult to find info on private companies, so most lists are for public ones.

In addition to the above suggestions (some I'll check out too), a really good source (though only updated yearly) is the Forbes Global 2000 list.

Good luck.
posted by evening at 9:51 AM on January 3, 2006