Bangladeshi firm holds steady among world's largest 5,000

A Bangladeshi company has held its rank among the world's largest 5,000 firms, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The American management consultancy firm published the report "Corporate Asia: A Capital Paradox" in January this year. 

In a previous report of the McKinsey published in July last year, the total revenue generated by the company was $1 billion, based on data from 2017. 

The report did not explicitly state the Bangladeshi company's name. But there are speculations in the local market that the firm could be the Summit Group, a large conglomerate involved in sectors such as communication, trading, shipping, energy and power. 

Incorporated in Singapore, the Summit Power International is a leading infrastructure developer and operator in South Asia. 

Setting up Bangladesh's first independent power plant in 1997, the Summit Power International went on to become the country's largest Independent Power Producer, reflecting 21 percent of Bangladesh's total private installed capacity and 9 percent of total installed capacity in 2017.

In October 2019, Japan's largest energy company Jera acquired a 22 percent stake in the Summit Power International for $330 million. 

Asia: A force to reckon with

Asia captured $1 of every $2 in new investments in the past decade, and this investment has helped the region scale rapidly. 

Asian companies have the largest share in the G5000 – the world's largest 5,000 firms by revenue. Asia accounts for 43 percent of the world's top 5,000 firms by revenue and is the only region whose representation has risen over the past ten years, the report said.

Chinese companies doubled their share of the G5000, in the decade, to over 900 firms and India's representation also doubled from a lower base of 85 to 142, the seventh-highest share. 

Although Asian firms outperform on growth in invested capital, they have underperformed when turning it into economic profit, added the report. 

During 2005-07 and 2015-17, economic profit dropped from $726 billion to an economic loss of $34 billion and half of that drop happened in Asia.

The report mentioned that three things led to this drop – the cyclicality of returns in the energy and materials sector, Europe's underperforming financial sector and China's allocation of capital to value-destroying sectors. 

One-third of all investments happened in China and 80 percent of that had been in value-destroying sectors.

In the past decade, the energy and materials sectors turned from being a large contributor to economic profit to the largest reason for lost economic profit, accounting for $500 billion of the slump. 

However, value is still being added in some pockets. And information technology globally has been a value-creator.

The McKinsey said, "We see pockets in Japan – the capital goods sector which means investments, heavy manufacturing, automotive and chemicals. That has been value-creating. We see that tech investments into Japan, Korea and China have been creating value.

"The coming decade will perhaps reap the benefits of these investments. They have been put in place, so we now hope to start seeing the returns on some of these over time."

In Asia, the "Troubled 200" – 200 largest companies that destroyed more economic profit than others – need to be turned around.

Similarly, the "Terrific 200" – companies that created a disproportionate amount of value – should get disproportionate investments to reverse global economic profit destruction.