Singapore firms fail to make list of Asia's best public companies; China maintains dominance

Singapore firms fail to make list of Asia's best public companies; China maintains dominance

SINGAPORE - Not a single firm from Singapore has made it onto Forbes Asia's 2016 Fabulous 50, which was again dominated by Chinese companies for the sixth consecutive year.

Of the region's 50 best big publicly traded companies named by Forbes, 22 hailed from China.

Last year's list featured two Singapore companies, chipmaker Avago Technologies and logistics firm CWT, but neither firm was named on this year's list.

The 50 companies are selected from a pool of 1,524 public companies in Asia with at least US$1.7 billion (S$2.3 billion) in annual revenue.

The firms are analysed using a battery of more than a dozen financial measures. Companies that have too much debt or where the government owns at least half of the shares are excluded. Companies that are losing money, or whose revenue is less than it was five years ago, were also eliminated to pare down the list to the final 50.

This year's list included 21 first-timers, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which was only eligible this year after it had met the requirement of being publicly traded for at least one year.

Alibaba, whose businesses also include online marketplace Taobao and financial technology company Ant Financial, not only makes its debut but boasts the highest market value of any of the companies at US$242.5 billion.

Last year's most valuable company, Tencent, is now second with a value of US$233.2 billion.

Among Southeast Asian countries, Philippines had the most companies on the list with three, namely food chain operator Jollibee Foods, retailer Robinsons and grocery chain Puregold Price Club.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam had one company each on the list.

seanyap@sph.com.sg

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