|
 Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil and gas multinational had the highest profit among non-financial listed companies in the Americas in the second quarter this year. The information was culled from a survey conducted by consultancy firm Economatica, based on balance sheets issued up until the 1st by companies based in Latin America and the United States.
Counting in financial institutions, Petrobras ranked second, after the United States-based Citigroup. According to Economatica, the bank's net profit from April to June was US$ 4.279 billion, whereas Petrobras' was US$ 3.963 billion. The third in the list is Exxon Mobil, another oil company, with net profit of US$ 3.95 billion.
The only non-US-based enterprise among the 10 most profitable in Latin America and the United States, including financial ones, is Petrobras, according to Economatica's survey. The fourth in the list is bank Goldman Sachs, followed by insurer Berkshire Hathaway, telecommunications company AT&T, the Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, the Wells Fargo bank and IBM.
In the list of 20 most profitable companies in Latin America, Petrobras achieved a much higher result than the second in the ranking, America Movil, from Mexico, which posted net profit of US$ 1.709 billion.
Next come Brazilian banks Itaú-Unibanco, Banco do Brasil and Bradesco; mining company Vale (Brazil); beverage company Ambev (Brazil); Braskem petrochemical company (Brazil); Itausa holding (Brazil); Mexican telecommunications company Telmex; airline TAM (Brazil); energy company Enersis, from Chile; energy company Cesp, from Brazil; steel manufacturer Tenaris, from Argentina; Mexican retail group Elektra; Santander Mexico; Chilean energy company Endesa; Brazilian pulp and paper manufacturer Aracruz; Santander Brazil; and Wal Mart Mexico.
In the Latin American ranking, 12 companies are Brazilian, five are Mexican, two are Chilean and one is Argentinean. With regard to sectors, the leading one was banking, followed by power, gas and water supply.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.