Ten years ago, the list of the worldâs largest financial institutions was dominated by banks from the US and UK. Today, just a handful of the top 20 have their headquarters in the US, still the worldâs largest economy. HSBC, at heart an emerging markets bank, is Britainâs sole representative. Ten years ago, Ten US banks sat in the top 20 list; today only three remain.
The real eye-poppers in 2009 are the two Canadian banks (RBC and TD) joining the ranks of the largest Chinese (ICBC, CCB, BoC, Bank of Communications, China Merchants), Brazilian (Itau and Bradesco), and Australian (Westpac and Commonwealth) banks, to be among those that have retained their value.
By the way, that's after the global haircut that everyone has experienced. Year-over-year, as of March 17/18, ICBC is down -48.7%, CCB is down -15.4%, Bank of China is down -20.9%, Bank of Communications is down -35.1%. RBC is down -17.9% and TD is down -28.6%.
In the long-run beauty contest of global investing it appears that some of the winners will be the top-down country plays and the companies, whose banks are resident in Canada, China, Brazil, and Australia.
1999: Top 20 Banks by Market Capitalization
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2009: Top 20 Financials by Market Cap
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Source:
The decade for global banks
Steven Bernard, Jeremy Lemer, Helen Warrell, Cleve Jones, Peter Thal Larsen and Simon Briscoe
FT, March 22 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ea450788-1573-11de-b9a9-0000779fd2ac.html
Hat Tip: Big Picture
