Forbes Global 2000 list: Reliance Industries climbs 8 spots to 45th rank

New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd., owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, rose eight ranks to take the 45th slot on Forbes' most recent ranking of the Global 2000 public firms in the world, making it the highest rank for an Indian business.

Forbes announced the 2023 list of the top 2,000 firms in the world. The Global 2000 rates the largest corporations in the world using four metrics: sales, profitability, assets, and market value.

JPMorgan, America’s biggest bank with USD 3.7 trillion in assets, is at the top of the list for the first time since 2011 and has emerged stronger from this spring’s regional banking crisis, with more deposits and opportunistic acquisition of the failed First Republic Bank, it said.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway which topped the list last year, fell to the 338th position in the latest list due to unrealised losses in its investment portfolio.

Saudi oil behemoth Aramco is at 2nd position followed by three giant-sized state-owned Chinese banks. Technology giants Alphabet and Apple are at 7th and 10th place, respectively.

Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance, with sales of USD 109.43 billion and profit of USD 8.3 billion, is the top most-ranked Indian firm at the 45th spot, climbing from the 53rd position it had held in last year’s ranking.

Reliance was ranked ahead of well-known names like Germany’s BMW Group, Switzerland’s Nestle, China’s Alibaba Group, US-based Procter & Gamble and Japan’s Sony.

State Bank of India climbed to the 77th spot from 105th in the 2022 ranking. HDFC Bank is at 128th position (153 in 2022) and ICICI Bank is at 163 (204 in 2022).

Other Indian firms on the list include state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation at 226 and HDFC (232). Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) made its maiden entry at 363 while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) slipped to 387th rank from 384 last year.

Axis Bank (423), NTPC (433), Larsen & Toubro (449), Bharti Airtel (478), Kotak Mahindra Bank (502), Indian Oil Corporation (540), Infosys (554), Bank of Baroda (586), Coal India (591), Tata Steel (592), Hindalco (660) and Vedanta (687) are other notable Indian firms on the list.

In all, 55 Indian firms figured on the list.

Three firms of the conglomerate helmed by billionaire Gautam Adani, whose group faced a scathing attack from a US short seller earlier this year that lead to him losing the world’s third richest tag, figured in the list.

The three Adani Group firms in the list include Adani Enterprises at 1062, Adani Power at 1488, and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zones at 1598.