33 Indian cos in Forbes' list; ONGC leads pack

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation leads the pack of 33 Indian companies, mostly in banking and software sectors, which have found place on Forbes magazine's coveted list of top 2000 corporate titans across the world.

HDFC Bank, Industrial Development Bank of India, National Aluminum, Bajaj Auto and UCO Bank joined the list, which shows that 17 Indian companies gained in rank but 11, mostly in the banking sector, lost ground compared with last year's list.

ONGC is at 256th position among the 2000 and is followed by Reliance Industries, State of Bank of India, Indian Oil, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Steel Authority of India, Bharat Petroleum, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy services and ITC to claim top ten spots for India.

Infosys Technologies, Hindustan Petroleum, HDFC, Tata Motors, Wipro, Punjab National Bank, Gail (India), Canara Bank, Bharti Tele Ventures, Larsen and Toubro, Bharat Heavy Electrics, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Hindalco Industries and Indian Overseas Bank are among the others who make the grade.

Citigroup topped the list followed by General Electric, Bank of America, American International Group, HSBC group, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, BP, JPMorgan Chase and UBS.

More than 50 companies based in China and Hong Kong and two Pakistani companies, Oil and Development and Pakistan Telecom, also find place among the 2000.

The global giants, ranked on a composite score for sales, profits, assets and market value, had a good year. Combined, they show a 10 per cent gain in sales, 32 per cent in profits, 10 per cent in assets and 17 per cent in market capitalisation over last year.

The gain, Forbes says, occurred despite a strong dollar that depresses numbers for the half of the members that are foreign.

The list has 173 new companies, the biggest being Electriciti de France.

Higher oil and gas prices helped energy companies grab six of the top ten spots here. ExxonMobil's record profits last year were $36 billion.

So far as Indian companies are concerned, among those who lost in ranking were State Bank of India, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Punjab National Bank, Gail India, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank.

Gainers included Oil and Natural Gas, Reliance Industries, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Steel Authority of India, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy, ITC, Infosys Technologies, HDFC, Tata Motors, Wipro, Bharat Tele Ventures, Larsen and Tourbro, Bharat Heavy electrics, Oriental Bank and Hindalco Industries.

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