A news report came across the wires earlier announcing that the Fed had approved the acquisition of the US branches of the Bank of East Asia by ICBC, the Chinese bank.  This has been a year in the making as we covered back in Jan 2011 in this article. That is when it was announced and the approval has taken just over a year and announced now. Of course, the interesting aspect here is that ICBC is 70+% owned by the Chinese government. We invite our readers here to search this site for the term China to get a ...Read More »

This week's earnings announcement by Apple highlighted the importance of China in the world market. Their sales success in China this quarter has been hailed by some as the reason Apple was able to beat the numbers this quarter. From the earlier days when the term BRIC was created and emerging markets started to be tracked, we all knew China would grow in increasing importance. And we continue to read examples like the Apple success.  Expect to see the trend continue. Still, many companies have not yet ventured there or still expect that the day of China's equal place at the ...Read More »

In our Global 5000 database, we have 761 companies located in the AsiaPac region - slightly more than the 680 in Europe. As many have pointed out, the region is full of promise and developing economies. Over the long term, growth rates are expected to exceed both Europe and North America. In this developing environment, there a number of mid-size and smaller organizations poised to grow and that represents great opportunity. To explore those companies, we suggest looking at a database from CNC Data which goes beyond the Global 5000 sized companies and has approximately 400,000 company records and 1 ...Read More »

Focusing on growth markets whether they are selected geographies, specific industries or sizes of companies is the goal of most companies these days. With growth slowing in the US and across Europe, most eyes are turning to Asia and with China as potentially the biggest slice of the pie. And for good reason. The Global 5000 was started with revenue in 2006 followed by continuing updates every year. As a starting point in 2006, there were 3,706 companies with $33.4 billion (USD) in revenue. Companies in China were 59 of those or 1.6% of the total. They had $1 trillion of ...Read More »

One of the industry news items today was the announcement that China's AVIC (Aviation Industry of China) is in talks to buy a small US airplane market. This is interesting on many levels and truly shows how the world is changing -- lest anyone thought we are really not that global. AVIC is state owned and manufactures aircraft including fighter jets and helicopters. And being state owned has lots of money. It had revenue last year of approximate $25 billion and is ranked #353 on the Global 5000 list. The Aerospace & Defense sector of the Global 5000 has 42 companies with ...Read More »

In a news report today, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has agreed to a deal to buy US branches of Bank of East Asia of Hong Kong. ICBC is 70% owned by the government of China and is number 13 in The Global 5000 banking sector with approximately $70 billion in revenue. Bank of East Asia is a much smaller bank with just over $1 billion in revenue and is number 128 in the banking sector in The Global 5000. While the transaction is interesting to note when Global 5000 companies make moves, this one is more about "watch ...Read More »

And in particular China. We just took a look at Fortune's G500 list for this year compared with 2007. If anyone questions the shifting global growth, consider the changes counting companies by country HQ -- then and now US had 160, now 140 Japan held steady at 67 in both periods UK - France - Germany went from 108 to 105 BRIC countries had 37 and now 51. These 9 countries had 372 of the top companies which has dropped slightly to 363.... showing greater dispersion.Read More »

This past week, Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical) NYSE: SNP announced it is acquiring Addax of Switzerland. It is a significant deal on a number of fronts. First, Sinopec is the largest listed company in China. It is listed also on NYSE, London and Hong Kong exchanges. And it took this step which is the largest acquisition of a Chinese company outside of the region. Showing China's coming global reach which will be growing over time. Secondly for the oil industry at large, a Chinese company stepping into exploration outside the region into the Mideast is big step forward not ...Read More »