10 companies involved in more than 40,000

Who controls the world?

Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. / Pedro Plassen Lopes

146 SHAREHOLDERS CONTROLLING 40% OF TOTAL VALUE OF COMPANIES

Who controls the world: 

10 companies involved in more than 40,000

A total of 737 shareholders, the 0.123%, control 80% of the value of the more than 43,000 multinational companies.

Narciso Pizarro

, Salmon Undertow

In 2011, S. Vitali, JB Glattfelder, and S. Battiston, published an article of great importance not only widely cited, but widely read: 

The Network of Global Corporate Control (PLOS ONE, October 26, 2011)  which presented the results of  a gigantic research , conducted at the Polytechnic School in Zurich, on the relationship between the owners of the largest companies in the world.

This research examines  the existing property relations between 43.060 largest companies multinationals in the world, with data from the data base Orbis in 2007. These relationships are analyzed as strings of shares in the capital of a company in another. 

The authors find 1,006,987 chains property relations between 600,508 nodes, economic actors that include more than 40,000 multinational and other agents not included in the initial list of companies.

The results of analysis of this network are very interesting:  737 shareholders, the 0.123% of the total, control 80% of the value of the more than 43,000 multinational companies . And besides, 146 of these shareholders, the 0.024%, control 40% of the total value of these companies. That is, a high concentration control. 

And, what is perhaps even more important, these shareholders are extremely linked. In the article the list of the 50 largest shareholders who were found with the data, do not forget, 2007 are also exposed.

With a different methodology and data from 2012, from the base of OSIRIS data, Dr. Reyes Herrero, of the Complutense University of Madrid, studying  the networks formed by common shareholders among the 150 largest companies in  the world, found some results very similar. 

The major shareholders in this study almost fully coincide with those of Vitali, Glattfederer and Batiston. We include here the list of the top 10 investors, with the number of companies in which each of them, which is a way to see direct and intuitive of the importance of the largest investors.

The most significant addition is that many of the investees are present simultaneously several of those investors. And, on the other hand,  are shareholders each other .

As a clarion call to Spanish: many of these shareholders are in the IBEX 35.  The case of Blackrock has achieved a sad notoriety , especially in Madrid, as a buyer of public housing at low prices.

146 shareholders control 40% of the total value of companiesmatters little to talk about the research at the Polytechnic School in Zurich or done without means in Madrid as far as the essentials are concerned: a few large interconnected investors control World economy. 

Should we bother to stress that  also control the governments and states ?

Corruption scandals of so much talk expose the links between politicians and businesses. In the stories we focus on political and denounce their behavior. 

But we do not have enough in mind the corrupting companies:  if the policy is sold is because someone buys . And what companies buy is the political will. 

Impose decisions that benefit their interests financing the parties and their members. The huge amounts of money they have are a tool of control. Control the world.

Scientific and technical dimension of this research is clearly stated in the video Who controls the world?

Article published in  The Salmon Undertow. 

and seen in  diagonalperiodico.net/global/