Which are the biggest?

Do you know the name of the biggest company in Great Britain? Or the names of the first three? Or of the first ten?

On page 78 are listed the names of the top 25 companies, as given in a recent survey. How many of them can you place?

To be quite fair, we must mention that the survey confines itself to public companies, i.e., those with shares quoted on the Stock Exchange, and to companies trading mainly in the United Kingdom. This means, for example, that big companies like Shell and the British American Tobacco Company are excluded.

Below are listed the 25 top companies in an analysis of the 100 biggest U.K. industrial undertakings with quoted share capital prepared by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. The grading is based on 1953-54 asset values and 1954-55 assets and incomes are given for comparison. Oil companies are not included.