Companies of a certain size often can't wait to "go public" and sell their shares on a stock exchange, reaping the influx of cash and recognition that accompanies an initial public offering (IPO). But many other businesses prefer to grow internally, eschewing the public trading of their shares altogether. These 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:private companies have certain advantages: few reporting requirements, no legions of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:shareholders to please, and no un🐈due focus on short-term goals.

In fact, some of the most successful companies in the world are private companies, and when run well, they can grow to sizes rivaling their largest publicly traded counterparts. So what are the world's largest private companies?

Defining Private Companies

Determining which are the world's 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:most valuable private companies largely depends on how ཧyou define "private." By🍎 some rationales, any company that doesn't trade publicly would count.

Using that definition, the world's largest private company for many years would have been 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Saudi Aramco, which was founded in the 1930s as a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:subsidiary of America's publicly traded Standard Oil of California (forerunner of Chevron). Once Saudi Aramco became profitable in 1950, the Saudi king graciously let Standard Oil keep half the profits while expropriating the rest. The alternative was to have the government simply commandeer the entire company, which it did anyway in 1980. In 2019, Saudi Aramco went public, listing its shares on the Saudi stock exchange, the Tadawul.

Lists of the most valuable private companies typically exclude 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:state-owned enterprises like the former Saudi Aramco, along with other giants such as China Mobile and PetroChina, and instead focus on companies that grew out of private-sector ingenuity and continue to flourish under private ownership today. Such lists can also be problematic. Private companies are, after all, priℱvate, and some of them are more secretive than others.

What Are the World's Most Valuable Private Companies?

Yahoo Finance, using data from the website Insider Monkey, recently listed these as the five most valuable private companies in the world, based on revenue figures from either 2021 or 2022:

1. Vitol. An energy and commodities company founded in Rotterdam, it reportedly had 2021 revenues of $279 billion.
   
2. Trafigura. A commodities trading company based in Singapore, it had 2021 revenues of $231 billion.
   
3. Cargill. An American agricultural company, it had revenues of $165 billion in 2022.
   
4. Schwarz Gruppe. An international retailer based in Germany, also known as Schwarz Group, it had estimated revenues of $145 billion in 2021.
   
5. Aldi. A grocery chain based in Germany, it had 2021 revenues of $134 billion.

Wikipedia, a website not normally thought of as source of financial data, also offers a list of what it says are the "largest private non-governmental companies by revenue." It lists the same companies and in the same order as above, but with different revenue figures in several cases.

Meanwhile the website Eqvista lists largely the same set of companies, but in a somewhat different order, based on 2021 revenues. It has Trafigura in first place, followed by Vitol in second and Schwarz Group in third. The Chinese electronics company Huawei is fourth, followed by Cargill in fifth place. It assigns Aldi to sixth place.

The Bottom Line

Some of the most successful companies in the world are privately held. While they often don't have the name recognition of their publicly traded counterparts, they can reward their owners in many other ways. With no need to worry about 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:paying out dividends, buying back shares on the open market, or other gimmickry that would help make them more attractive to potential shareholde🥀rs, private companies enjoy flexibility and adaptability that most public companies can only dream of. The companies discussed in t𝓀his article would know that well.