Global 500 headquarters move eastward
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by Scott DeCarlo,
Nothing quite captures how much the earth’s corporate terrain has changed as the shift in headquarters for the world’s 500 biggest companies.
Call it the great eastward migration. In 2004 more than 40% of the world’s 500 biggest corporations by revenue were in North America, with the second-largest reservoir of business juggernauts just across the Atlantic in Western Europe. What a difference a decade makes. Today Asia is home to more Global 500 companies than North America, and China alone (with 95 names on the list) has more of these mighty moneymakers than Germany, England, and France combined. Indeed, three of the world’s 10 largest companies—petrochemical giant Sinopec Group (No. 3), China National Petroleum (No. 4), and mega-utility State Grid Corp. of China (No. 7)—are based in the People’s Republic. Only two of the top 10 (Wal-Mart Stores and Exxon Mobil) are in the U.S.
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