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German companies hit hard in global rankings

The German business landscape has taken a hit from the economic crisis, and only five remain ranked in the top 100 companies of the world, daily Die Welt reported on Tuesday.

German companies hit hard in global rankings
Photo: DPA

Volkswagen was the highest-ranking German company on the list by business analysis group Ernst & Young. The automaker, which has been plagued by a takeover battle with Porsche, fell nine places from its 2008 ranking to land in the 35th spot, the paper said.

Energy firm Eon was a distant second to Volkswagen, ranked 62nd on the list, with a value of €48 billion ($67 billion). Rounding out the five German companies still on the list are engineering congolmerate Siemens (70), Deutsche Telekom (91) and software giant SAP (96).

American companies dominated the rankings, with 37 companies ranked in the top 100. China had 11, Great Britain contributed nine, and seven French companies made the list.

While the Top 100 companies grew in value from €6.7 trillion ($9.3 trillion), the value of the German quintuplet companies shrank by €21 billion ($30 billion) to €242 billion ($338 billion US).

“To a large extent, the recovery of the global stock markets went right past the top German companies,” Ernst & Young executive committee member Hendrik Hollweg told Die Welt.

Adding to Germany’s losses, the only three companies to be bumped from the 2008 list were all German businesses. At the end of 2008, pharmaceutical giant Bayer, power supplier RWE and insurance corporation Allianz had all ranked in the top 100.

Most of the global increase came from firms in the developing world.

“It appears that there, the enterprises will better get over this crisis than Europeans and Americans,” Hollweg said.

The top ranking company, Petrochina, is almost equal in value to all five of the German companies that make the list. Mainland China’s biggest producer of oil is listed with a value of €240 billion ($336 billion).

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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