Profile of the 100 greatest Brazilian agribusiness companies in 2020

Abstract

The present paper sought to study the profile of the 100 largest publicly traded companies in Brazilian agribusiness, in 2020, based on data from the Forbes List. Frequency analyses, cross tables, correlation analysis and mean comparisons were carried out. The variables considered were the following ones: sector of activity, type of company, year of foundation, place of foundation, state of foundation of the company, geographic region of foundation of the company, country of foundation of the company, and total revenue in 2020 (R$ billion). The results were as follows: a) the sectors with the largest number of companies were bioenergy (24%), mixed (mostly mixed cooperatives) (18%), animal protein (15%), and grains and oils (11%); b) the sectors with the greatest prominence for total revenue were animal protein (30% of total revenue), bioenergy (26%), and trading companies (18%); c) out of the 100 largest publicly traded companies in Brazilian agribusiness, 23 are cooperatives; d) out of the 100 largest publicly traded companies in Brazilian agribusiness, 88 were founded in Brazil; e) the Southeast, South, and Midwest regions represent the founding regions of most national agribusiness companies; f) cooperatives have a lower average total revenue than private companies; and g) cooperatives are more significant in the south region.