3 Ghanaian firms make Africa’s top 250 list

The Africa Business Magazine has released a ranking of the top 250 companies in Africa for 2020

South African firms dominated the list, accounting for 8 of the top 10 companies and 16 of the highest ranked 20. The highest ranked West African firm is Dangote Cement, coming in at 21, down from its 19th place last year.

Prosus, a Technological firm based in South Africa, emerged on top.

However, only three Ghanaian companies are featured on the Top 250 African company rankings for 2020.

Tullow Oil, Standard Chartered Bank and the Ghana Commercial Bank are the three Ghanaian companies that appeared on the list, placing 39th, 151st and 243 rd, respectively.

Tullow Oil previously placed 49th in 2019 while Standard Chartered Bank placed 188th last year.

Instructively though, the rankings are done on the basis of market capitalization which means only firms listed on a stock exchange are up for consideration.

Conceivably, if more large Ghanaian firms, such as Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, were listed, there would have been more entries in the rankings from the country.

For example, following the recent listing of MTN Nigeria on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the company enters the rankings, for the first time, in 23rd place.

The ranking by Africa Business Magazine is based primarily on market capitalization data of companies operating from across the African continent.