Size can be a disadvantage but even in the ranks of global giants, there are a few exceptions–fast growing, nimble and well-managed companies that help set the benchmarks for their respective industries. These Global High Performers have been expanding their earnings at 23% annually and returned an average 16% to shareholders over the past five years.
10. Mosaic
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 54.6%
The Mosaic Co is producers and marketers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients for the global agriculture industry. Mosaic is the world’s largest producer of phosphate and second-largest producer of potash—two crop nutrients which are primary ingredients in producing fertilizer. The company’s annual potash production capacity is 10.4 million tonnes, and its phosphate production capacity is 10.3 million tonnes. Mosaic employs approximately 7,500 people worldwide.
9. Apple
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 60.7%
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company’s best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. As of September 2010, Apple had 46,600 full time employees and 2,800 temporary full time employees worldwide and had worldwide annual sales of $65.23 billion. As of October 2010, the company operates 317 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold. As of September 2011, Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization and the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit.
8. Visa
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 63.3%
Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company headquartered on 595 Market Street in San Francisco, California, although much of the company’s staff is based in Foster City, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit card and debit cards. Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers. In 2008, according to The Nilson Report, Visa held a 38.3% market share of the credit card marketplace and 60.7% of the debit card marketplace in the United States. In 2009, Visa’s global network (known as VisaNet) processed 62 billion transactions with a total volume of $4.4 trillion.
7. First Solar
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 63.4%
First Solar, Inc. is an American manufacturer of thin film photovoltaic (PV) modules, or solar panels, and a provider to PV power plants of supporting services that include finance, construction, maintenance and end-of-life panel recycling. First Solar uses cadmium telluride (CdTe) as a semiconductor to produce panels that are less expensive than those manufactured from crystalline silicon. In 2009, First Solar became the first solar panel manufacturing company to lower its manufacturing cost to $1 per watt (since reduced to 75 cents per watt). As of 2010, First Solar was considered the second-largest maker of PV modules worldwide and ranked sixth in Fast Company’s list of the world’s 50 most innovative companies. In 2011, it ranked first on Forbes’s list of America’s 25 fastest-growing technology companies.
6. Belle International Holdings
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 70.4%
Belle International Holdings Limited is the No. 1 woman’s shoe retailer in the People’s Republic of China, with 22% domestic market share. It is engaged in the manufacturing, distribution and retail sales of footwear products. It offers a number of brand names on its footwear business, including Belle, Staccato, Teenmix, Tata, Fato, JipiJapa, Joy & Peace and Bata. As of its IPO in May 2007, the company had a retail network comprising 3,828 retail outlets in 150 cities in China and a network of 35 retail outlets in Hong Kong, Macau and the US.
5. MasterCard
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 74.0%
MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters in Purchase, New York. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the “MasterCard” brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. MasterCard Worldwide has been a publicly traded company since 2006. The company was created by two entrepreneurs in Louisville, Ky. named Raymond Tanenhaus and Stanley Benovitz. It was absorbed by the United California Bank in year 1966. Prior to its initial public offering, MasterCard Worldwide was a cooperative owned by the 25,000+ financial institutions that issue its card.
4. Celgene
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 81.1%
Celgene Corporation is a manufacturer of drug therapies for cancer and inflammatory disorders. It is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Summit, New Jersey. The company’s major products are Thalamid (thalidomide), which is approved for the acute treatment of the cutaneous manifestations of moderate to severe erythema nodosum leprosum (“ENL”), as well as in combination with dexamethasone for patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, and Revlimid (lenalidomide), for which the company has received FDA and EMEA approval in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of multiple myeloma patients who have received at least one prior therapy.
3. Owens Corning
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 113.4%
Owens Corning Corporation is the world’s largest manufacturer of fiberglass and related products. It was formed in 1935 as a partnership between two major American glassworks, Corning Glass Works and Owens-Illinois. The company was spun off as a separate entity on November 1, 1938. However, major medical liabilities due to the company’s use of asbestos as a fireproofing agent led to the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000. The company emerged from Chapter 11 in October 2006.
2. Millicom Intl Cellular
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 124.7%
Millicom International Cellular, also known as Tigo, is a mobile phone network provider in America and Africa. Based in Luxembourg, the company provides mobile services in 14 countries. With operations across Central America, South America, South-east Asia, and Africa, using GSM, CDMA and TDMA on America, GSM and UMTS over Africa. Millicom also is the owner of Amnet, a company that provides cable television and broadband internet services in Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador; additionally the company provides corporate data services in Guatemala and Nicaragua.
1. Compass Group
5-Year Avg Net Income Growth: 161.0%
Compass Group is a global contract food-service and support services company headquartered near London, United Kingdom. It is the largest contract foodservice company in the world and has operations in over 50 countries. It serves around 4 billion meals a year in locations including offices and factories, schools, universities, hospitals, major sports and cultural venues, mining camps and offshore oil platforms.
