Four US firms top global big list
March 31, 2006An all-American top four still leads the latest annual Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s biggest companies.
Banking giant Citigroup topped the table for the third year in succession, followed by industrial group 
General Electric in second place.
In third place was Bank of America, while in fourth was insurance firm American International Group.
UK bank HSBC was the highest ranking non-American firm, picking up fifth place for the second year running.
HSBC was followed by three oil firms, US giant ExxonMobile, Anglo-Dutch firm Shell and UK business BP.
Making up the top 10 were American bank JP Morgan Chase and Swiss lender UBS.
The highest placed carmaker was Japan’s Toyota in 12th position.
Britain had three other firms in the top 30 - Royal Bank of Scotland (14), Barclays (20), and fellow banking group HBOS (24).
Financial magazine Forbes measures the companies’ size by a combination of sales, profits, assets and stock market value.
via bbc.
