Manila—Gokongwei-led conglomerate JG Summit Holdings landed on Forbes Magazine’s list of 50 “best” publicly traded companies in Asia-Pacific, the only company from the Philippines that made it to the Chinese-dominated roster.
In a recent special report, Forbes Asia included JG Summit in its list of Asia’s “Fab 50” companies, an annual ranking that the magazine has been making since 2005.
JG Summit had a market value of $3.9 billion and an annual turnover of $2.7 billion, the report estimated.
It is one of the leading companies in the Philippines with business interests in air transportation, banking, food manufacturing, hotels, real estate and property development and telecommunications.
China, however, produced 23 or the biggest bulk of the companies on the list.
“The story of Asia is increasingly the story of China and this year’s list of the 50 best publicly-traded companies in Asia-Pacific certainly reflects that,” the report said.
In 2010, China claimed only 16 slots but as the country’s real estate, construction, auto-making, appliance manufacturing and gold-mining industries continue to boom, an additional company from each of those sectors barged into the top ranks, Forbes reported.
The magazine said the most notable newcomer this 2011 was Qingdao Haier, the world’s number one white goods brand.
China only had five of its companies landing on this elite list in 2005 and two in 2006. The swelling of its representatives since then, according to Forbes, is “a mark of how quickly China’s companies have arrived on the world stage.”
On the other hand, Forbes said China’s gain was largely India’s loss. After matching the number of China’s honorees last year, India had only seven representatives this year.
Japan—once Asia’s wealthiest nation which had 13 companies in the top 50 when Forbes started analyzing corporate Asia six years ago—had zero representative for the first time. Forbes said this was partly a result of the devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami last March.
South Korea produced eight Fab 50 companies, the most it has had since 2005, when it also had eight. “The chaebols are going like gangbusters and seven of the companies are chaebol affiliates; the eighth is hot Internet company NHN (Corp.),” Forbes said.
Forbes said the changing lineup each year was “a window on the region’s dynamism, and this year was no exception.”
In terms of industry, Forbes said technology companies dominated its list this year with eight representatives, down from 11 last year. This was followed by the consumer durables industry (7) and food (6). For the second year in a row on our Fab 50 list, none from the oil/gas industry made it to the list.
Forbes said it came out with the list by analyzing 1,073 companies that had at least $3 billion in revenue or market capitalization. “We looked at the five-year track records for revenue, operating earnings and return on capital, and then the recent results and share-price movements, and finally the outlook. If it had too much debt, or the government owned at least half the shares, it was out. The result is an honor roll of the region’s best,” the magazine said.
The magazine also recently released its list of top 200 Asia-Pacific companies under $1 billion in market capitalization. Two publicly listed gaming firms from the Philippines made it to the list—Pacific Online Systems Corp. (with estimated $91 million in market value and $28 million in sales) and Philweb Corp. (with $453 million in estimated market value and $24 million in sales)./INQUIRER