T P W I

Each year Fortune magazine publishes a list of the top 500 corporations in the world measured by revenue (the Fortune Global 500). The corporations are further categorised in a number of ways, including by business sector, by profits (after tax and extraordinary charges), and by country. Fortune ranks companies for the financial year just passed, so that the 2002 survey is based on data for the financial year ending March 2002 at the latest. In practice this will mean that much of the data given in the 2002 publication reflects the business operations of 2001. All figures are translated into US Dollar equivalents, using the average rate for the financial year in question.

Here, the companies listed by Fortune are split into banks and non-banks for six different countries (France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK) in five different years (1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001). For each country, the total profits of the non-banks are calculated, and the total profits of the banks are calculated. The results are shown in graphical and tabular form below (our results for 2001 correspond with the Fortune 2002 publication, results for 2000 correspond with the Fortune 2001 publication, and so on).

As an example, in the survey published during August 2002, 33 of the Fortune 500 companies were based in the United Kingdom. Among these companies were 6 banking organisations which, together, made the equivalent of USD 20.62 billion in profit during the year. All of the other UK corporations on the list, when added together, made a loss of USD 0.97 billion. 37 companies on the Fortune 500 were headquartered in France. Here, the 5 banks made USD 7.99 billion profit, and the remaining 32 corporations when added together made a loss of USD 2.41 billion.

Table of Profits by Country for Banks and non-Banks in the Fortune Global 500
(millions of US Dollars equivalent)

	1996			1997			1998			2000			2001
	banks			banks	others	banks	others			others		banks	others
UK	11925			15549	29887	17567	31319			12030		20621	(974)
France	4414			5412	16070	5778	22627			31704		7999	(2412)
Italy	1180			(1233)	12570	2403	11162			8648		2133	8263
Netherlands	4896			5057	6793	5922	9219			13605		2893	28
Spain	1499			1649	4693	2047	2942			6185		4791	4129
Switzerland	(3959)			14	8691	4208	14337			18875		3888	9126
TOTAL	19955			26448	78703	37925	91606			91047		42323	18161

(Figures in brackets are negative amounts)