MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Sixty Chilean companies in Top 500 of Latinamerica

LAN sales expanded an impressive 30% between 2007 and 2008

Financial magazine América-Economía this week ranked 60 Chilean companies among the top 500 businesses in Latin America on the basis of sales – five more than in 2007. Chile follows Brazil (212) and Mexico (126) in the ranking, surpassing bigger economies like Argentina (35) and Venezuela (7).

Topping the list of Chilean companies are mining company CODELCO (17th place); petroleum companies COPEC (20thplace) and ENAP (21st place); energy company ENERSIS (29th place); and retail company CENCOSUD (33rd place). Other significant positions are held by the mining company Escondida (50th place) and retail giant Falabella (67th place).

All companies except CODELCO, which fell from 14th place in 2007, improved their rankings. Airline Company LAN, owned in part by presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera, impressively climbed 34 positions higher than in 2007, and now ranks in 90th place. Furthermore, LAN’s sales grew by 30% between 2007 and 2008.

As a whole, Chilean sales were up from 158 million US dollars in 2007 to 164 million in 2008, bucking a strong headwind that had the combined sales of all 500 companies declining 3.7%, from 1.9 billion in 2007 to 1.8 billion in 2008. The year also marked the end of increasing sales for the list as a whole, which had been in ascension since 2001.

BCI analyst Pamela Auskenzer said Chile’s success in the list has a lot to do with the increasing globalization of the nation’s companies.

“The most important point has been the internationalization of many companies, especially in the retail sector. They have expanded aggressively,” she said.

The top three companies in the list are all petroleum companies with Venezuela’s PDVSA coming in 1st, Mexico’s PEMEX in 2nd, and Brazil’s PETROBRAS in 3rd. Santiago Times