Business & Money | Sunday 10 June, 2018 4:11 am |

Seven Saudi companies figure on the annual list of Forbes Global 2000: the world’s largest public companies.

The seven Saudi companies are Sabic, Saudi Electricity, Saudi Telecom, Saudi British Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi, Saudi Arabian Mining, and Saudi Investment Bank.

The 16th annual Forbes Global 2000 list includes publicly-traded companies from 60 countries.

Collectively, the companies on the list account for $39.1 trillion in sales, $3.2 trillion in profit, $189 trillion in assets and $56.8 trillion in market value.

On the inaugural list in 2003, there were just 43 companies from China-Hong Kong.

The Global 2000 list was compiled using data from FactSet Research systems to screen for the biggest public companies in four metric: sales, profits, assets and market value as of May 11, 2018, closing prices and includes all common shares outstanding.

First four separate lists of the 2000 biggest companies were created in each of the metrics: sales 2000, profits 2000, assets 2000, and market value 2000. Each of the 2000 lists has a minimum cutoff value in order for a company to qualify: sales $4.47 billion, profits of $333.3 million, assets of $10.72 billion and market value of $6.55 billion.

A company needs to qualify for at least one of the lists in order to be eligible for the final Global 2000 ranking.