Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider, on Wednesday published its annual list of 300 mid-size listed companies that are expected to emerge as challengers to the world's leading blue chip companies – and five South African companies have made the list.

Konrad Reuss, Standard & Poor's managing director for South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, said that Wilson Bayly Homes–Ovco, Northam Platinum, Murray & Roberts Holdings, Grindrod and Aveng are the South African companies expected to challenge the world's best.

"Designated the S&P Global Challengers, the list is comprised of those publicly traded companies that show the highest measures of intrinsic and extrinsic growth characteristics.

"Two metrics of extrinsic growth – share price appreciation and sales growth – are used in conjunction with two metrics of intrinsic growth – earnings growth and employee growth," said Reuss.

Industrials the biggest contributor

The 2008 class of S&P Global Challengers has representation from 33 countries and nine sectors.

The countries contributing the most members are China (76), the United States (73) and Hong Kong (14). China and Hong Kong are evaluated separately to account for different reporting currencies. Regionally, Asia/Pacific comprises 39 percent of the S&P Global Challengers List, the Americas 29.33 percent, Europe 30 percent and the Middle East/Africa 1.67 percent.

Among sectors, industrials was the biggest contributor with 81 companies.

"Mid-caps are truly positioned in an evolutionary 'sweet spot,' having survived beyond their start-up phases and offering stability as well as rapid growth opportunities in the future," said Reuss.

Standard & Poor's publishes the list yearly, and tracks its performance through annual publications.

Significant growth trends

"Looking back at the Class of 2003, we see significant growth trends in terms of market capitalization, sales, earnings and employee count."

The S&P Global Challengers List is based upon a robust methodology that applies consistent standards to multiple countries. The attributes used to identify the companies are share price appreciation, sales growth, earnings growth and employee growth.

The S&P Global Challengers List is Standard & Poor's response to needs of consultants and marketers analyzing global growth trends or seeking client engagement opportunities, strategy formulators assessing future partners or competitors, and product providers structuring investment vehicles that offer exposure to fast growing mid size companies.

I-Net Bridge