The ten largest publicly-listed Swedish companies based on 2009 sales that appear in the Forbes Global 2000 list for 2010 are listed below:
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Related ETF:
iShares MSCI Sweden Index Fund (EWD)
The 10 Most Profitable Swiss Companies
The 10 most profitable publicly-listed Swiss companies that appear in the Forbes Global 2000 list for 2010 are listed below:
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Nestle (OTC: NSRGY) is the world’s largest consumer goods company that owns about 6,000 brands. ABB Ltd (ABB) offer power and automation technologies to industrial customers and the company has operations in about 100 countries.
Related ETF:
iShares MSCI Switzerland Index (EWL)
21 Foreign Stocks Yielding More Than 5% Dividends
With the third quarter over, I wanted to identify some foreign large cap ADRs that paid dividends of over 5%. So I ran the stock screener with the following criteria:
1. Stocks must trade on the NYSE
2. Market cap. must be >= $5B
3. Must have dividend yields of 5% or more
The search resulted in 21 ADR stocks that are listed below:
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The only financials in this list are Banco Santander(SAN) of Spain and Mizuho Financial Group (MFG) of Japan. Santander’s recent acquisitions should help the bank increase its earnings in the long run. This year the banking giant has acquired a 24.9% stake in Grupo Financiero Santander(Mexico), bought the German retail network of Sweden’s Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, bought 318 U.K. branches from Royal Bank of Scotland and picked up Allied Irish Banks’s (AIB) 70% stake in Poland’s Bank Zachodni WBK.
The three electric utilities Companhia Energetica Minas Gerais (CIG), Companhia Siderurgica Nacional(SID) and CPFL Energia S.A.(CPL) can offer exposure to the utility sector of the hot emerging market of Brazil.Ten of the ADRs noted above are in the telecom sector. Spanish telcom company Telefonica (TEF) has a strong presence in Latin America. Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS) is a telecom services provider in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Armenia with a subscriber base of about 98 million at the end of last year.
600 Banks Have Not Yet Repaid TARP Funds
In an earlier article I wrote about the success of the TARP program. This $700 billion bailout government program is officially ending on Monday. According to a Wall Street Journal piece, more than 600 banks are still holding $65 billion of the bailout funds.Many of these banks are too weak to repay the government funds.
The graphic below shows eight banks that haven’t repaid TARP capital:
At the height of the financial crisis, regulators allowed the Cleveland, Ohio-based National City bank to be taken over by PNC Financial Services (PNC). But three other Ohio-based lenders, KeyCorp (KEY), Huntington Bancshares(HBAN) and Fifth Third Bank (FITB) survived the crisis partly due to the TARP capital infusions.
Some small banks such as New York Community Bankcorp Inc(NYB), Chemical Financial Corp(CHFC) and Smithtown Bancorp Inc (SMTB) refused to participate in the TARP program due to the heavy restrictions that came with the loans.
10 U.S. Public Companies With Strong Insurance Subsidiaries
SNL Financial recently published its ranking of publicly-listed companies which have strong insurance units. Banking giants Bank of America(BAC), Wells Fargo(WFC) and Triton Insurance, a subsidiary of Citigroup(C)Â appear in the top 10 list.
These companies were selected based on the first quarter financial performance of their insurance divisions.
The Top 10 Companies with Strong Insurance Units:
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Source: SNL Financial
Big banks such as the three super banks noted above have been expanding their insurance operations for many years now since insurance business can be highly profitable compared to traditional banking. In addition to these banks, large regional banks such as BB&T Corp (BBT) also have large insurance divisions that contribute a significant portion to their earnings.