DBS named Singapore's biggest public company, 17 local firms on Forbes' list

SINGAPORE - The DBS Group has once again been named as Singapore's biggest public company by American business magazine Forbes.

The bank moved up 15 positions to 253rd in the world this year on Forbes' Global 2,000 from 268th last year.

The list is a ranking of the world's biggest, most valuable and most powerful public companies. It is based on a composite score derived from equally-weighted measures of a firm's revenues, profits, assets and market value.

In total, 17 Singapore companies made it onto this year's list, three fewer than last year.

The biggest Singapore companies remain unchanged from last year, with OCBC (world ranking 286) and Singtel (world ranking 320) following DBS in second and third place respectively.

Four Singapore companies fell off this year's list, The Straits Times reported. They are Avago Technologies, China Aviation Oil, Overseas Union Enterprises and CWT. But Neptune Orient Lines, which failed to make last year's list, was placed in the 1,679th position this year.

According to Forbes, the 2016 list features companies from 63 countries that together account for US$35 trillion (S$48.14 trillion) in revenue and have a combined market value of US$44 trillion.

Chinese companies accounted for four of the top 10 companies. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China held on to the top three spots in the ranking.

However, Forbes noted that a slowing Chinese economy hurt profits in the middle kingdom, which knocked the Bank of China down to sixth spot from fourth last year.

The rest of the top 10 includes Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Apple, ExxonMobil and Toyota.

Other notable companies on the list include HSBC (14th), Samsung (18th), Li Ka-shing's CK Hutchison (127th), Alibaba (174th), Facebook (188th), McDonald's (189th), Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda (190th).

Regionally, Singapore's neighbours Malaysia has 15 companies on the list, with Maybank being the highest ranked in the 352nd spot.

Bank Rakyat Indonesia was the top ranked Indonesian firm at 429th.

The Singapore firms on the list are:

1. DBS Group (world ranking 253)

2. OCBC (286)

3. Singtel (320)

4. UOB (332)

5. Wilmar International (359)

6. Keppel Corp (877)

7. Singapore Airlines (895)

8. CapitaLand (926)

9. Flextronics International (931)

10. Global Logistic Properties (1231)

11. Olam International (1468)

12. Sembcorp Industries (1520)

13. City Developments (1547)

14. Frasers Centrepoint (1675)

15. Neptune Orient Lines (1679)

16. ST Engineering (1767)

17. Golden Agri-Resouces (1879)

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