Resilience and robustness. These are the adjectives that describe the Mauritian banking sector, which is facing the crisis. Better yet, four institutions, the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), the State Bank of Mauritius (SBM), Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Standard Chartered Bank are among the ten most profitable companies, as ranked Top 100 Companies, established by Business Publications Ltd. and released yesterday.
MCB and holds the upper hand, with gross profits of Rs 5 billion. It is closely followed closely by the SBM, which is ranked second, with profits amounting to Rs 3.2 billion.
Chartered Bank is in tenth place with profits amounting to Rs 1 billion.
Mauritius Telecom, meanwhile, can boast of being the first parastatal to record the biggest profit in the nonbancaire sector, Rs 2.5 billion, followed by Jan de Nul Pacific (Rs 1.8 billion) and Ciel (Rs1, 6 billion).
Furthermore, in terms of profi ts of the top 100 companies in the country, they were down 8.8% to Rs 21 billion in 2013, against Rs 23 billion in 2011. However, a dozen companies on the Top 100 have made above Rs 1 billion profit.
Like last year, this is GML which rises on the highest step of the podium. The turnover of the group reached Rs 27.6 billion, against Rs 26.9 billion last year, an increase of 2.6%. At this rate, GML is expected to reach the goal it is fi xed in the short and medium term, a turnover of Rs 30 billion.
GML is well ahead of Air Mauritius, which with a turnover of Rs 17.8 billion, ranks second. IBL, a subsidiary of GML, remains in third position with a turnover of Rs 17.5 billion.
Vivo Energy FAIL and wound up the Top Five with turnover of Rs 12.5 billion and Rs 12.3 billion respectively.
Meanwhile, the combined turnover of the top 100 companies in the country amounted to Rs 345 billion in 2012 against Rs 322 billion in 2011, representing an increase of 7.1% Rs.
In 2011, only three companies had a turnover in excess of Rs 15 billion, do GML, Air Mauritius and IBL business.