But How Big Is Big?

Our resident statistician-cum-humorist, Adam Gaumont, puts the abstruse and abstract Top 100 stats into perspective. If B.C.’s 100 top-earning companies were a single country, for example, which would they be?

Less Than a Day
The aggregate revenues of the BCBusiness Top 100 companies for 2008 was $126 billion, or approximately 18 hours, 11 minutes, and 24 seconds of global economic activity.

Not Even a Foursome
With aggregate revenues of $126 billion, B.C.’s Top 100 come in at just more than the net worth ($112 billion) of the world’s three richest people: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Carlos Slim (though the trio are down a combined $68 billion from last year).
Republic of Macedonia Flag
Macedonian Vacation?
With gross revenues of $9.65 billion, Telus, B.C.’s biggest corporate earner, had a gross product equal to that of the landlocked Balkan power of Macedonia, whose capital, incidentally, is Skopje – and whose GDP is $9.62 billion.

A Refuge for Miners? Tofino, Vancouver Island
If Teck took up as much room in B.C. as its revenues did, the company would be the size of Vancouver Island. (Vancouver Island is 3.3 per cent of B.C.; Teck’s revenues [$6.9 billion] are $3.5 per cent of B.C.’s GDP).

Black gold and gold … gold
Goldcorp, B.C.’s most profitable corporation in 2008, netted $1.47 billion; Calgary’s EnCana Corp., Canada’s most profitable corporation in 2008, netted $6.34 billion.


Not quite proportional
U.K.-based global banking giant HSBC Holdings has reported assets of $2.52 trillion; HSBC Bank Canada, the global banking giant’s Vancouver-headquartered Canadian subsidiary, has reported assets of $0.07 trillion.

The house always wins
B.C. Lottery Corp. netted $1.08 billion in 2008, which makes the estimated value of the next Super 7 jackpot suddenly seem a bit paltry at $0.01 billion.

Army of one
Gross revenue for the Jim Pattison Group was $6.70 billion in 2008, as was the gross revenue of Jim Pattison, the company’s lone shareholder (not including other holdings).

Hydro-dollars
If B.C. Hydro’s net income of $369 million were equally distributed among the B.C. people, the crown-owned public utility would be cutting each of us a cheque for $83.86.

Parking violation
Impark’s gross revenues for 2008 were $255 million – that’s one $58 parking ticket for every man, woman, and child in B.C. (You’re still up about $25, for those keeping score at home.)

Live Dungeness CrabsWe’re gonna need a bigger crab boat
T&T Supermarkets’ gross revenue was $410 million, or the approximate street value of 105,670,103 pounds of live Dungeness crab (this week only!).

The Fort of Hard Knox
Eldorado Gold Corp. saw its gross revenue rise to $307 million, which has the same value as 720 standard (12.4 kg) gold bricks (as of press time).


Besbol been bery bery good to him
If you had gross revenues of $227 million, you could have made it on to this year’s Top 100 list, or you could have signed Alex Rodriguez for about eight seasons.

A steely resolve against clichés
$59.6 million: 2008 net income of Imperial Metals Corp., or how much money BCBusiness Online would have by now if we had a dime every time we heard the phrase “tough economic times.”