"Many of the names of this year's Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's biggest companies will emerge on the other side of the trough far stronger when the world economies snap back next year," said Scott DeCarlo, Project Editor of the Forbes Global 2000 list. "For the strong corporations there are rivals to buy, technologies to fund and new markets to enter - all at lower prices than we have seen in years."
Four new Israeli companies joined and one Israeli company dropped out of the list of the 2000 biggest companies ranked by US magazine Forbes. New entrants to the list are Bezeq Telecommunications Ltd., Africa Israel Investments Ltd., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., and Gazit Globe Ltd., while Oil Refineries was dropped out of the list.
Topping the 13 Israeli companies on the list was Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., ranked in place 381 of the 2000 largest companies around the world - down from 346th place last year, followed by Bank Leumi at number 808 and Bank Hapoalim at number 859.
Delek Group was ranked in 1112th place closely followed by IDB Holding Ltd. in 1119th place and Israel Corp. in 1238th place. Israel Discount Bank was ranked in 1289th place, Africa Israel Investments was in 1344th place, Bezeq Telecommunications Ltd. was in 1554th place, Check Point Software Ltd. was in 1561st place, Bank Mizrahi Tefahot was in 1600th place, FIBI Holding Ltd. was in 1832nd place and Gazit Globe Ltd. made it to the 1882nd place.
Forbes' ranking of the world's biggest companies is not based on a single metric, like sales. Instead, an equal weighting of sales, profits, assets and market value is used to rank companies according to size. The rankings span 62 countries, with the US still dominant at 551 members, but that is 200 fewer than in 2004, when the magazine first published this global list.
The top ten of the largest companies in the ranking was led by General Electric, Royal Dutch Shell in second place, and Toyota Motors in third place.
As world economies are hit by a global recession, combined profits of the 2000 largest companies were down 31 percent last year while market value was down 49%. In total, the Forbes Global 2000 companies account for $32 trillion in revenues, $1.6 trillion in profits, $125 trillion in assets, and $20 trillion in market value.
Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. topped the list of the thirteen Israeli companies who made it into this year's Forbes ranking of the world's 2000 biggest companies, compared with ten companies last year.