WM is the largest firm, but not the most profitable:
US retail titan Wal-Mart Stores Inc, with 1.5 million employees, topped the Fortune Global 500 biggest firms last year -- its third straight year -- and British Petroleum took second spot.Wal-Mart spearheaded a pack of 189 American companies in the top 500, Fortune said on Monday. The discount chain's revenues increased 7 percent last year to US$263 billion and its workforce swelled by 100,000 people to 1.5 million employees.
But Wal-Mart's profits, which jumped 13 percent to US$9.1 billion last year, were not the largest.
Not counting MCI, the number 168 company, which emerged from bankruptcy with a "paper profit" of US$22.2 billion, Texas oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp was the most profitable with net profit of US$21.5 billion.
Citigroup Inc was second most profitable with US$17.9 billion.
Posted by Kevin on July, 14 2004 at 12:56 PM
