Mega corporations fly under the radar

To the average punter, its name means nothing.

But Glencore, a vast trader in minerals, metals, grain and energy, has burst into the public domain with plans for the biggest flotation in the history of the London Stock Exchange, attracting a likely price tag of US$60 billion ($76.3 billion) and creating 485 instant millionaires.

So how many other corporate megaliths pass under the publicradar?

Based in the small Swiss town of Baar, near Zurich, Glencore has long preferred to keep itself quiet. Its chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, gave his first press interview in a decade last week.

Globally, it employs 55,000, generated turnover of US$145 billion last year and has assets of US$79.8 billion.

Its business revolves around buying and selling commodities, transporting them around the world and adopting "arbitrage" positions to find a profit through differences in geography, time or produce.

In business circles, success clearly does not necessarily mean visibility; in fact, immense wealth and a desire for privacy often go hand-in-hand.

So we have compiled a list of some of the other powerful business multinationals you've barely heard of - and who like it that way.

SAUDI ARAMCO
Saudi Arabia

A quarter of the world's conventional oil reserves are controlled by Saudi Arabia's state-owned energy firm, which is widely considered to be the planet's most valuable company.

Saudi Aramco can trace its origins back to 1933, when it was founded as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company.

It has 55,066 employees but ran into controversy recently when WikiLeaks cables revealed suspicions among US diplomats in Riyadh that it was exaggerating claimed reserves of as much as 716 billion barrels of crude oil beneath the Arabian peninsula.

Former Shell chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart is a director.

CARGILL
United States

Founded by the son of a Scottish sea captain in Iowa during the US Civil War, Cargill has grown into a sprawling agribusiness empire, stretching from grain and commodities to meat, eggs and processed-food ingredients.

The Minnesota-based firm's sales for the nine months to February topped US$84 billion but Cargill is still 88 per cent owned by descendants of founder WW Cargill, seven of whom are ranked by Forbes magazine as billionaires.

Cargill was an early supporter of genetically modified foods, which remain unpopular in Britain: one Cargill director lamented the UK had "more distrust of science" than any other nation.

INEOS
UK/Switzerland

The chemicals multinational Ineos was Britain's biggest private company until it shifted its domicile to the tiny Swiss town of Rolle to avoid tax.

With annual sales of US$28.4 billion, the firm is best known as the part owner of Scotland's Grangemouth refinery. (PetroChina bought a 50 per cent share last year). Ineos is run by Jim Ratcliffe, a Mancunian millionaire, who is unapologetic about quitting Britain: he was furious that government ministers refused to give him a temporary break on VAT payments to ease Ineos through a liquidity crisis.

BRIDGEWATER ASSOCIATES
United States

The world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates manages an eye-watering US$90 billion of investments - a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of Morocco. Based in Connecticut, the fund focuses on currency speculation, trading government bonds and fixed-income debt and has achieved remarkable returns of 18 per cent annually over a decade.

It is run by Ray Dalio, a fan of TM, whose published "daily observations" are keenly followed on Wall St and who banned office gossip last year.

ISS
Denmark

Copenhagen-based ISS cooks meals at all of the RAF's British airbases, cleans branches of RBS, provides housekeeping staff for hotels and runs security at many hospitals.

The firm is the fifth largest private employer in the world with 520,000 on its payroll - a workforce the size of the population of Sheffield.

It is owned by Goldman Sachs and Swiss buyout firm EQT and was planning to go public on the Danish stock market last month, but delayed its offering at the last minute.

Its chief executive, Jeff Gravenhorst, recently remarked: "From a brand exposure perspective, we're probably the best-kept secret around."

PERMIRA
United Kingdom

A sprawling, London-based private-equity firm, Permira grew out of the investment bank Schroders in the 1980s and is the owner of household brand names including Hugo Boss clothing and Birds Eye foods, the AA, Saga and retailer New Look.

It has capital of €20 billion and is the largest private equity fund to be focused on Europe. Like all such buyout firms, it tends to stay well below the public radar but has 12 offices around the world and was run for a decade by Damon Buffini, the son of a single mother from Leicester, who was a business adviser to Gordon Brown. Now co-run by an American, Tom Lister, and a Finn, Kurt Bjorkland.

NOBLE GROUP
Hong Kong

An Asian version of Glencore, this Hong Kong-based empire buys, sells and ships anything from Turkish cotton to Colombian coffee and Australian coal.

It has 11,000 staff and was founded by Brighton-born Richard Elman, a former scrap-metal dealer who named the company after a fictional 19th-century trading company in James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan. Noble Group is listed on Singapore's stock market and reported revenue of US$56.7 billion last year.

KOCH INDUSTRIES
United States

With interests ranging from fertilisers to chemicals, toilet rolls and ranching, the second largest private company in the US is run by ultra-conservative billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, who are major bankrollers of the Tea Party movement.

The Kansas-based conglomerate operates key oil pipelines across North America, makes the stretchable fabric Lycra, and has a handful of brands in the UK, including Lotus toilet roll.

It employs 70,000 people and has made US$32 billion of acquisitions since 2003.

SINOpec
China

The biggest company in the world's most populous country, SinOpec is described on its website as a super-large petrol group owned by the Chinese Government.

It has petrol stations and refineries across China, plus extensive exploration operations.

International ventures include a stake in a Canadian oil sands extractor, Syncrude. Ranks seventh in Fortune's list of the planet's biggest companies with revenue of US$187 billion.

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