Private limited companies in the spotlight

The largest businesses are plc’s. Right? Wrong…

A good piece in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago has some great information to help explain how many large private companies there are.

The Sunday Times has teamed up with accountancy firm Deloitte to produce some research into Europe’s largest family-owned and venture-capital owned private companies.

The research has identified over 400 private companies with revenues ranging from €1 billion to €93 billion, resulting in combined sales of more than €1.5 trillion.

Whilst the detailed research isn’t really directly relevant to business students, some of the examples highlighted by the research are well worth noting down.

There is a common misconception amongst students (and some teachers) that the largest businesses are public companies (plcs).

So to provide a little balance, here are some household business names which are still private companies:

Lidl
Ikea
Lego
Red Bull
Prada
San Miguel
Bosch

Another example is Alliance Boots, which used to be public, but was then “taken private”.