Last week the magazine African Business published its annual Top 250 Companies report, which ranks Africa’s top firms primarily by market capitalisation.

Its universe incorporates companies that are listed on African stock exchanges, as well as those that are listed on other bourses elsewhere in the world, but are African in origin.

In 2011 when the magazine conducted its survey, the top 250 companies had reported year-on-year growth of 33% in terms of market capitalisation, up from USD 639bn to USD 848bn, underlining the scale of the recovery from the global financial crisis. Yet almost all of those gains have been lost over the past year as the combined value of Africa’s biggest 250 listed firms has fallen to USD 652bn.

This was attributed to fears of a double-dip recession in the industrialised world, as well as ongoing insecurity in Nigeria and political winds of change in north Africa.

Despite big falls in the value of most of Africa’s largest companies, according to the report, the ranking order of the continent’s five largest firms remains the same as last year.

Mining giants BHP Billiton and Anglo American lead the way with market capitalisations of USD 71.5bn and USD 54bn respectively, although these figures represent big falls on last year’s USD 99.4bn and USD 77.2bn.

In the context of such substantial reductions, third-equal-placed SABMiller recorded a value of USD 35bn, almost the same as last year’s USD 35.7bn.

Synthetic fuels producer Sasol and MTN Group of the telecoms sector retain fourth and fifth spots with modest falls in value to USD 32bn and USD 29.5bn.

As expected, South Africa continues to dominate the list, filling the top nine positions, before Maroc Telecom of Morocco comes in at 10th place.

This year is generally expected to see a rise in the values of Africa’s listed firms, as growth prospects remain buoyant while the global economy has shown signs of an ongoing recovery.

Africa's top 20 companies Source: African Business

Rank	Company name	Country	Industry	Value (Millions US$)
1.	BHP Billiton	South Africa	Mining and Metals	71,595
2.	Anglo American	South Africa	Mining and Metals	54,351
3.	SABMiller	South Africa	Consumer Goods – Food	35,051
4.	Sasol	South Africa	Oil and Gas	32,019
5.	MTN Group	South Africa	Telecom	29,518
6.	Kumba Iron Ore	South Africa	Mining and Metals	19,412
7.	Standard Bank Group	South Africa	Banks and Financial	16,407
8.	Angola American Platinum	South Africa	Mining and Metals	14,299
9.	FirstRand	South Africa	Banks and Financial	14,021
10.	Itissalat Al Maghrib	Morocco	Telecom	13,834
11.	Naspers	South Africa	Media	13,816
12.	Absa Group	South Africa	Banks and Financial	11,365
13.	Anglogold Ashanti	South Africa	Mining and Metals	11,281
14.	Impala Platinum	South Africa	Mining and Metals	11,043
15.	Dangote Cement	Nigeria	Construction and Materials	10,565
16.	Sanlam	South Africa	Insurance	9,885
17.	Shoprite Holdings	South Africa	Retail and General Trading	9,164
18.	Old Mutual	South Africa	Insurance	8,094
19.	Attijariwafa Bank	Morocco	Banks and Financial	7,804
20.	Gold Fields	South Africa	Mining and Metals	7,580

Imara is an investment banking and asset management group renowned for its knowledge of African markets.