- Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (China)
For most of its history, ICBC was the state-owned commercial bank in
the People’s Republic of China. On October 28, 2005, ICBC was trans-
formed from a state-owned enterprise to a shareholding company, with
the Chinese Ministry of Finance and SAFE Investments Limited each
holding 124 billion shares. In 2006, ICBC set the record for the largest ini-
tial public offering in history, with a $21.9 billion sale on the Hong Kong
and Shanghai exchanges; 83.5 percent of the shares are still government
owned.
- HSBC Holdings (United Kingdom)
HSBC was founded as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank by a group of
Hong Kong businessmen led by Thomas Sutherland in 1865. In 1955 the
Shanghai office was closed, and in 1993 the bank moved its official head-
quarters to London in anticipation of the Chinese takeover of Hong
Kong. HSBC has over 10,000 offices in over 80 countries and assets of
over $1.8 trillion.
- Total (France)
The French oil company Total began in 1924 as the Compagnie Française
des Pétroles (CFP). It created the brand name Total in 1954 and adopted
it as the name of the company in 1991. Total is a vertically integrated oil
company with reserves in Indonesia, Argentina, Colombia, and the
North Sea. The oil company has operations in over 130 companies and
earns less than one-quarter of its revenue from France.
- Electricité de France (EDF) (France)
EDF was formed from the nationalization of private utilities in 1946. The
French government sold 15 percent of EDF to the public in 2005, and it
deregulated 70 percent of the market. EDF was primarily a hydroelectric
producer, but it now operates many nuclear power plants. The company
earns 63 percent of its revenues from France and about one-third from
other European countries, including the United Kingdom.
184 PART 2 Valuation, Style Investing, and Global Markets