More German companies among most important businesses listed on the stock exchange

Even though the shareholder value of most German top companies fell last year, their importance on the global stock exchanges nevertheless increased: by the end of 2008 eight German companies were among the world’s 100 most expensive companies following seven in the year 2007 and four in 2006. As a consequence, Germany moved up from the fourth to the second position in the country ranking behind the USA.

The above ranking is based upon a study by the Ernst & Young consulting firm which each year analyses the market capitalization of blue-chip companies.

In the year 2008 the market capitalization of the world’s 100 most expensive companies fell by 42% or 6.7 billion US dollars to 9.3 billion US dollars. Due to the financial crisis the market capitalization of financial enterprises dropped on the world’s stock exchanges: Currently there are only 16 financial businesses among the 100 most valuable companies in the world, whereas one year ago there were 27 of these. Not affected by the crisis are businesses such as manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics or foodstuffs.

The most valuable German company is Volkswagen which rose from rank 94 to rank 26 over the past year and increased its value by 27 billion US dollars, followed by E.ON (rank 53) and Siemens (63). Newcomers to the top 100 ranking are Bayer and SAP, whereas Daimler did not make it among the 100 most valuable companies in the world.

Those German companies which were among the top 100 most valuable companies had a combined market capitalization of 511 billion US dollars at the end of 2008, at the end of 2007 this figure had been 752 billion US dollars which amounts to a loss in value of 241 billion US dollars or 32 percent.

Companies from virtually all countries are suffering from the bear market on global stock exchanges. There is hardly one company the shareholder value of which increased in the past year. Europe and emerging markets, however, suffered an above-average loss in value, while the importance of the USA grew. Thus, the number of businesses from the US among the top 100 companies increased by 11 to 43. Europe, on the other hand, is represented by only 38 companies in the above ranking following 46 in the year 2007.

The most important findings of the study are available in the form of a presentation containing plenty of charts for download. GERMAN

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