Tata Steel expected to enter Fortune 500 list
09 Nov 2006
Mumbai: Indian steel giant Tata Steel is likely to find a place in the next list of Fortune 500 companies that list the world''s largest corporates, the US based business magazine''s international editor Robert Friedman said.
With the $8-billion acquisition of Anglo-Dutch Corus, Tata Steel may become the seventh Indian entity to feature on the Fortune Global 500 list of companies, Friedman said.
Tata Steel has annual revenue of about $5 billion while Corus had total sales of about $17.54 billion in 2005. The merger could take their combined revenue to over $22 billion.
The Fortune 500 list currently lists six Indian companies - Indian Oil, Reliance Industries, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum, Oil and Natural Gas Corp and State Bank of India. IT giants like Infosys and Wipro have emerged as true global players but it could be still some time before they make to the list, he pointed out.
Friedman said this during the launch of Fortune Global Forum 2007 that would be held for the first time in India. He said the magazine might even launch an India specific list as it was planning a major expansion of its coverage and presence in the country.
The Fortune list is based on the total global sales figures of the companies and many Indian firms, who could be large players in the domestic market, still lag behind many of their overseas peers on this parameter, he pointed out.