For many of the world's corporate giants, 2007 was a year of misery. As the inappropriately named subprime crisis hit home, the US economy - still the world's largest by some distance - slumped dramatically and has been in near-recession. Stock markets have mirrored the doom and gloom of the real economy and have taken a beating.

The financial sector has been particularly hard hit by the credit crunch, with a number of leading US and European banks recording large losses and having to write down billions in doubtful loans. Ten of the top global banks have written down more than US$200bn in doubtful loans.

Not surprisingly, Citi and UBS have slipped down the list of Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the global 2 000 top corporations. Top spot, held by Citi for four years, is now occupied by UK bank HSBC, which has reported 31% earnings growth and 26% revenue growth each year over the past five years, and has to date remained relatively unscathed by the credit crisis. Second spot goes to US conglomerate General Electric, which also reported losses mostly in its financial services division.

(The Forbes rankings are determined by statistics on sales, profit, assets and market value.)

If the subprime crisis wasn't enough to batter developed nations, soaring oil and commodity prices added to the pain. With crude oil much higher than $100/barrel, consumer prices are on the way up, forcing central bankers into a difficult balancing act of preventing a meltdown while maintaining price stability.

It's these emerging markets that have provided some relief to the global economic picture last year. The Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) states and other emerging countries continue to offer fertile and expanding markets, while the German and Japanese economies are emerging much stronger than most experts had forecast. But surging oil prices show no sign of letting up, and this threatens global growth prospects.

Needless to say, resources companies are smiling all the way to the bank. ExxonMobil, Shell and BP are firmly entrenched in Forbes' global top 10, while the world's top mining firms are rapidly climbing up the rankings.

Since 2004 companies from resource-rich countries head the Forbes list of five-year total returns. Brazilian companies have achieved returns of over 60% since 2004, followed by Indian (42%), Russian (40%) and Chinese (38%) corporations. It's clearly not by chance that the strong emergence of Bric companies in the Forbes 2 000 ranking coincides with the strong economic performances of their home countries.