The strength of the rand has helped move companies with SA links up the world rankings. Though no purely SA company qualifies for the Financial Times Global 500, two SA-linked companies that dropped out last year have re-entered (the FT rates companies by market capitalisation, so its order of ranking is not identical to the FM's).
The Swiss-based luxury goods firm Richemont, controlled by the Rupert family, is back in at number 419, and SABMiller creeps back at 494. Its big rival Anheuser-Busch, incidentally, is up at 114.
This doubles the SA-linked representation, as the pair join mining companies BHP Billiton (71st) and Anglo American (148th). These are both a few places higher than the 88th and 153rd places they occupied last year, and Anglo American, which last year came in below RTZ, has now edged above it, as RTZ has slipped back from 124th to 151st.
The broader resources sector is dominated by oil & gas producers, headed by the world's third-biggest company, Exxon Mobil, whose market cap of US$264bn dwarfs even BHP Billiton ($55bn), let alone Anglo ($34bn). But SA can at least take satisfaction from the fact that the world's two biggest mining groups have roots here.
If we limit the analysis to the European top 500, the picture improves slightly. If there are no newcomers to the list, at least nobody has dropped out, either.
Three of the four companies in the world list are obviously more highly ranked in Europe, and they are joined by Old Mutual (234th in Europe) and Liberty International, which at 325th has actually dipped six places. Interestingly, though, because of BHP Billiton's split capital structure, with the part of its capital represented by the ex-Australian BHP side excluded from the FT's European ranking, it and Anglo change places. Anglo is rated 51st in Europe, BHP Billiton 76th, dropping it below RTZ (63rd).
The other two SA firms that shifted their primary listings to London, Didata and Investec, are nowhere to be found in the European rankings. Worth mentioning, though, is miner Xstrata, which has significant interests here and is run by Eskom and Billiton graduate Mick Davies. It is 213th in Europe - the 195 places it climbed in the latest list was the second-biggest gain - and 58th in the UK.
Go down another level to the purely UK FT rankings and we find several other firms - also mostly miners - with strong SA associations: Lonmin (124th), Vedanta (165th - run by ex-Billiton supremo Brian Gilbertson), bank Investec (181st), IT firm Didata (254th), Kebble-controlled Randgold Resources (326th) and Tradehold subsidiary retailer Brown & Jackson (470th).
Clearly, as the careers of Gilbertson and Davies show, mining is still where SA expertise is highly rated. SABMiller, however self-confident it may be, still has to convince financial markets that it can export its brewing expertise, and Old Mutual, Investec, Didata and Brown & Jackson have all had their problems, one way or another.
