BCBusiness
The ranks of B.C.’s biggest companies faced economic and other headwinds in 2024. Still, some outperformers—think gold producers and Crown corporations—shone through
Search or sort through our annual Top 100 Companies list below—ranked by 2024 revenue and full of insights into the province’s economic heavyweights, from gold miners to Crown corporations.
• Click on any column header to sort the data • Use the search box to filter companies • Scroll horizontally on mobile devices to see all columns • Revenue and Net Income figures are in thousands of dollars ($000)
Most years, there will be a handful of major companies in B.C. that will at least double their revenues. This past year there were none.
Lithium Americas (Argentina) achieved the feat after the first full year of commercial operations at its Cauchari-Olaroz lithium brine evaporation project in Argentina, posting a 481-percent revenue gain in 2024. But it didn’t get quite large enough to crack our list of the 100 largest companies by revenue in British Columbia. The company will not make the Top 100 next year, either, because it’s in the process of moving its headquarters to Switzerland.
If British Columbia’s corporate community were a professional sports team, people might say it’s in a rebuilding phase. Head offices have been dropping off our list for a variety of reasons.
Paper Excellence Group, until recently domiciled in Richmond and recording $14.6 billion in revenue in 2023, last year reorganized and rebranded itself as Domtar Corp. after its 2021 acquisition based in Montreal, where it now officially resides.
Teck Resources shed its multibillion-dollar coking coal business focused on southeastern B.C. The new owner, Glencore plc of Switzerland, discloses limited information about the financial contribution of what’s now known as Elk Valley Resources.
Though still formally registered in Burnaby, RB Global, the former Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, is progressively relocating its head office functions to suburban Chicago, where IAA, the used car sales platform it acquired in 2023, is based.
Former Top 100 stalwart HSBC Bank Canada, meanwhile, is absent from the list this year, swallowed whole by Royal Bank of Canada in a deal that closed in the spring of 2024. Silvercrest Metals has been acquired by Chicago-based Coeur Mining in a deal that just closed this year. And following its parent company’s takeover by private equity firm Apollo Funds in 2023, Richmond-based chemical distributor Univar Solutions Canada stopped disclosing its financial data. These companies join other Top 100 alumni that reported revenues in the past but can no longer be measured with any accuracy.
Neither was 2024 a banner year for those organizations that remain on the Top 100. Nearly as many companies recorded revenue declines as recorded improvements, and this in a time of still pressing inflation. Aggregate revenues for the Top 100 sank 10.4 percent, to $251.7 billion from $281 billion a year earlier.
Perennial performers Telus Corp. and Lululemon Athletica both stumbled operationally in 2024, though they still managed to eke out higher revenues. Forest giants like West Fraser Timber and Canfor Corp. continued to suffer through a cyclical downturn. There’s no obvious cohort of rising stars ready to take Team B.C. to the next level.
One possible exception was gold miners. Thanks to the yellow metal’s steady climb toward US$3,000 an ounce amid growing geopolitical uncertainty, precious metals mining, exploration and royalty streaming companies leapfrogged up the list. They were led by Pan American Silver (with a 23 percent revenue gain), Equinox Gold Corp. (39.5 percent), Eldorado Gold Corp. (33.1 percent), Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (28.3 percent), Lundin Gold (34.1 percent), Fortuna Mining Corp. (27.9 percent), China Gold International Resources Corp. (67.1 percent), K92 Mining (77.7 percent) and Orla Mining (49.4 percent). Wheaton, meanwhile, surged to the top of our list of B.C.’s 10 biggest companies by market capitalization (page 31), with a market value exceeding $50 billion.
Other notable growth stories, all with revenue gains of 40 percent or more, included Anthem Properties, Imperial Metals, Arc’teryx Equipment and Ventana Construction Corp.
Crown corporations like BC Housing Management Commission soared in this year’s Top 100, with the agency totalling $1.38 billion in net earnings
Gold miners likewise outperformed as a group in terms of profitability. But a more surprising story hidden in our data (for companies that disclose their earnings, at least) is the fact that four of the top five organizations by total dollar earnings were Crown corporations. Following Lululemon Athletica and its nearly $2.5 billion in net earnings ranked B.C. Lottery Corp. ($1.54 billion), the Insurance Corporation of B.C. ($1.46 billion), the BC Housing Management Commission ($1.38 billion) and the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch ($1.15 billion). Make of that what you will, though we should note that the fiscal year-end for most provincial Crowns is March 31, meaning that their 2024 numbers are older than most of their Top 100 peers, reflecting nine months of operations that took place in the 2023 calendar year.
Measuring profitability another way—using net earnings as a percentage of total revenues—gives us a somewhat different picture of the province’s most profitable companies. Here copper producer Ivanhoe Mines led with a net profit margin of 54.4 percent, followed by B.C. Lottery (53.7 percent), BC Housing (52.5 percent), Wheaton Precious Metals (41.2 percent), Lundin Gold (35.7 percent), liquefied natural gas shipper Teekay Tankers (32.8 percent) and port operator Westshore Terminals (31.8 percent).
B.C. headquartered copper producer Ivanhoe Mines, which owns one of the world’s fastest growing copper mines, had a monster year in terms of profitability, leading with a net profit margin of 54.4 percent
Pan American Silver staged the most impressive turnaround story of the year, going from a loss of $141.6 million in 2023 to a profit of $154.4 million in 2024. In the same vein, Fortuna Mining swung from a $58.9-million loss to a $194.4-million gain and Orla Mining went from losing $36.5 million to making $121.9 million. Honourable mention in the turnaround category goes to forest giant West Fraser Timber, which cut its net loss to $6.8 million last year from $225.4 million a year earlier.
The disappointing performance of the Top 100 in 2024 might be viewed as a leading indicator of what many economists believe will turn into a recession in 2025. If that’s the case, let’s hope they lead the way to better times ahead too.
Tracked by BCBusiness annually since the 1980s, the Top 100 is meant to serve as a snapshot of British Columbia’s corporate heavyweights. Membership is open to companies whose operational and/or legal headquarters are located in the province. The listed firms are ranked by total revenues recorded in the fiscal year ending in 2024. For organizations that report in U.S. dollars, figures are converted to Canadian dollars at the 2024 average annual rate of 1.3698 and 1.3497 for 2023.
Eligible organizations may be publicly traded, privately held, Crown-owned, subsidiaries, co-operatives or independent not-for-profit agencies. Financial data may or may not be audited. In cases where the organization does not publish or otherwise disclose its financial information, we sometimes include third-party reports or estimates where we have reasonable confidence in their accuracy.