The largest companies in Russia

Main article: Russian economy

2023: Top 100 most profitable companies include 6 ICT industry participants

On September 26, 2024, Forbes published a rating of the 100 most profitable companies in Russia. The list includes six participants in the information and communication technology industry.

The rating was headed by Rosneft with a net profit of 1.529 trillion rubles at the end of 2023. Next comes Sber with 1.509 trillion rubles, and closes the top three Surgutneftegas with 1.322 trillion rubles. The leader of the rating of the previous year - Gazprom - fell out of the list with a record loss of 583 billion rubles. The total profit of 100 participants in the rating exceeded 13.2 trillion rubles. A year earlier, this figure was 9.27 trillion rubles.

The financial sector is the industry with the most companies in the ranking (19). These are banks, insurance companies, an exchange, a non-state pension fund and payment systems. Next in terms of the number of participating companies are the transport sector (12), the oil and gas industry (8) and construction (8). Six representatives of the ICT segment included:

• Multidisciplinary holding T1 - 36th place - 73.4 billion rubles;
• MTS - 44th place - 55.5 billion rubles;
• Rostelecom - 53rd place - 42.3 billion rubles;
• MegaFon - 55th place - 40 billion rubles;
• Avito - 57th place - 39.3 billion rubles;
• Golden Crown - 88th place - 27.2 billion rubles.

It is noted that for the first time in the ranking, two bookmaking companies are presented at once: Foncore (42nd place) and NKS Management Company (89th line), operating under the Fongbet and Winline brands, respectively. In addition, for the first time, two operators of payment systems were included in the list at once: these are NSPK (69th place, Mir and SBP) and RNKO Payment Center (88th line, Golden Crown). Among the newcomers to the rating are the bank of non-core assets Trust (34th position), IT holding T1 (36th place), construction holdings Group 1520 (47th line) and Velesstroy (74th place), Internet company Avito (57th position), grain exporter Native Fields (96th place), etc.^[1]

2022: Russia's most profitable companies named

Gazprom in 2022 became the most profitable company in Russia. This is evidenced by the rating compiled by Forbes magazine based on an estimate of net profit received by companies in 2021 and 2022. The results of the study were published in early October 2023.

Following Gazprom in the ranking of the most profitable companies in the Russian Federation are Lukoil (790.1 billion rubles), Novatek (640.4 billion rubles), Norilsk Nickel (429.3 billion rubles), Tatneft (284.9 billion rubles), Sakhalin Energy (283.9 billion rubles), Sberbank (270.5 billion rubles) and Fosagro (184.7 billion rubles).

As noted in the publication of the publication, the rating cannot be considered fully reliable from the point of view of places, because a large number of companies enjoy the right not to publish reports under sanctions. At the end of 2022, they refused to disclose information about the profit of at least 30 potential participants in the rating, mainly from the chemical industry and metallurgy.

The rating also includes operating companies and legal entities registered in Russia that are registered in other jurisdictions, but at the same time Russian shareholders have 25 percent or more of their shares, and business assets are largely related to Russia. Investment funds and holdings did not hit either, as did companies that are intermediate owners between the ultimate beneficiary and the operating holding.

Among the unusual results of 2022, Forbes named the dynamics in competition between the largest retail chains. Retailers X5 and Magnit, who have long fought for leadership in revenue and ahead of other chains in profit, lost in the list to the Mercury Retail Holding group, which operates the Krasnoye & Beloe and Bristol stores. According to Forbes, the holding's profit increased by 30%, to 48.2 billion rubles.^[2]

2021: The rating of the largest Russian companies by capex for 5 years has been released

In November 2022, Forbes magazine published a rating of the largest Russian companies in terms of capital investments for five years - 2017-2021. During this period, the rating companies invested a total of almost 42 trillion rubles.

According to analysts, for 2017-2021. Gazprom's investment program exceeded 8.6 trillion rubles. Gazprom's largest projects during this time are Power of Siberia, Nord Stream 2, and Turkish Stream.

Rating of the largest Russian companies by capex

In second place is Rosneft with an investment of 5.9 trillion rubles. Moreover, in 2020, the company almost caught up with Gazprom in terms of investments due to the purchase of Taimyr oil and gas fields, the transaction amount is 751 billion rubles.

The third place with investments of 3.4 trillion rubles is with Russian Railways. According to Forbes, in the coming years, due to the need to expand infrastructure in the east of the country, investments will grow: the investment program in 2023 will exceed 1.07 trillion rubles.

According to experts, representatives of capital-intensive industries prevail in the ranking - oil and gas, metallurgy, chemical industry, telecommunications and mechanical engineering, but there are companies from other industries. Yandex took 38th place, the amount of investments - almost 249 billion rubles. Half of this amount fell on 2021, when Yandex spent 73 billion rubles to buy out Uber's shares in Yandex.Eda, Lavka, Delivery and an unmanned unit, as well as 4.5% of the shares of a joint venture managing a taxi business.

Also in the rating was the agricultural holding "Miratorg" (No. 45, investments - 199 billion rubles) - the largest investor in the agricultural sector of Russia. But at the beginning of 2022, the co-owner of Miratorg, Viktor Linnik, said that for the first time in the last 15 years, it was unprofitable for the company to invest in either poultry, pork or cattle, since the payback of new projects was not visible.^[3]

2020

IT companies have become the fastest growing in Russia

In mid-November 2021, RBC published a rating of the 500 largest Russian companies - by revenue for 2020. According to the study, information technology became the fastest growing industry - the total revenue of such companies in 2020 increased by 30.7%.

At the same time, technology industries occupy a small share in the ranking: the telecommunications industry in RBC 500 in 2020 accounts for 2.4% of total revenue, information technology - 1.1%, media and Internet - 0.6%.

Rating of the largest Russian companies

The total revenue of Russian companies included in the RBC 500 rating, according to the results for the covid 2020, decreased for the first time in the entire existence of the rating - since the reporting year 2014. It decreased by 4.9% in nominal terms - to 84.9 trillion rubles, returning to the level of 2018. The reason for the negative dynamics was the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, quarantine restrictions on business activity and a decrease in demand for oil and gas, transport services, etc.

The gas giant Gazprom regained the lead in the ranking: the company only once - in 2020 - lost this place to Rosneft (in 2021 the company took second place). In general, the composition of the top 5 companies in the rating has never changed during its existence: invariably, these places with rare permutations are occupied by Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil, Sberbank and Russian Railways, the publication says. Analysts associate such "stability" in the top 5/top 20 with a lack of competition, an overly regulated environment, as well as the excessive dominance of companies with state participation.

IT companies have become the fastest growing in Russia

In the top twenty, there was only one change - the mining and metallurgical company, which occupied 18th place, "Evraz supplanted Rosoboronexport." The retailer is in 6th position, followed X5 Group by "" and RostecMagnet"."^[4]

Rating of the largest Russian companies by product sales volume

The agency "RAEX-Analytics" in October 2021 published a rating of the largest Russian companies in terms of product sales by the end of 2020. The first place in the list was taken by Gazprom with a result of 6.07 trillion rubles, which is 19.6% more than a year earlier. The top three also included Lukoil and Rosneft.

According to the rating, the total revenue of the companies included in it amounted to 90.2 trillion rubles. The fall in the total turnover of the largest Russian business at the end of 2020 amounted to 5.9% compared to the end of 2019, or almost 5.5 trillion rubles.

Rating of the largest Russian companies by product sales volume

The oil and gas sector suffered the most noticeable damage among all significant industries represented in the current rating - minus 27.7% of revenue for the year. This is explained by the fact that the average annual price of a barrel of the main export grade of Russian Urals oil amounted to $41.73 in 2020 against $63.59 in 2019.

Transport and logistics companies took the second place in reducing turnover among significant industries in the ranking of Russian business leaders at the end of 2020 - the average drop in revenue growth among them was 15.1%. At the same time, the reduction in cargo turnover in the country reached 4.9%, and passenger traffic - 52.5%. At the same time, airlines suffered the most.

Along with the sectors affected in the crisis 2020, the rating revealed a whole group of industries that achieved noticeable success. Among them, the pharmaceutical industry stands out - the average revenue growth rate of the companies represented in the rating was 48%. The agency's commentary states that, in addition to massive injections of budget funds into medicine during the pandemic, the success of the industry has been associated with the implementation of a large-scale state program since 2009, as a result of which the drug market in the country grew by 8-10% annually, and the share of vital drugs of domestic production from less than half reached 90%.^[5]*

Ranking the most profitable companies

The net profit of Surgutneftegaz should be looked at through the prism of its formation, and this is a huge "cube" of dollars, which is always overvalued at the end of the year (excluding its profit is 165 billion rubles).

The largest developers of Russia

At the end of October 2021, Forbes magazine presented an updated edition of its rating of the largest developers in Russia. Analysts of the publication used data provided by the companies themselves, as well as assessments of the Cian.ru and Dataflat research centers. Read more here.

2019

2018

2014: Industry structure of the 500 largest companies in Russia

The industry structure of the 500 largest companies in Russia in 2014

According to the results of 2014, the map of ownership of the 500 largest companies in Russia is presented below.