The figures were presented by consultancy company Economática, which analyzed the figures for listed companies. These four sectors, represented by 73 companies, answered to 69.4% of the accumulated profits of the 317 Bovespa listed companies in the first half.
The leadership in the ranking of accumulated profit was for the banking sector, which includes 25 institutions. The net aggregate result of companies in this sector was 16.58 billion Brazilian reais (US$ 10.3 billion) in the first half of the year, growth of 13.1% over the same period in 2007.
In the second place comes the oil and gas sector, with six listed companies and aggregate net profit of 15.81 billion reais (US$ 9.8 billion), 41.3% growth over the first half of last year. Petrobras answered to the lion's share of this total.
The electric energy sector comes in the third position with added net profit of 8.765 billion reais (US$ 5.43 billion) against 7.818 billion in the first six months of 2007. This area is represented by 37 companies in the Bovespa and has risen one position in comparison with the ranking last year.
In the fourth position came the mining area, which had been in the third place from January to June 2007. The sector counts on five companies listed on the Bovespa, and Vale do Rio Doce is by far the largest. The sector's added profit totaled 6.937 billion reais (US$ 4.3 billion) in the first half of this year, against 10.94 billion in the same period last year, having been overtaken by the added profit of the electricity sector.
Economática also stated that the added profit of the 10 most profitable listed Brazilian companies reached 45.41 billion Brazilian reais (US$ 28.1 billion) in the first half, 65% of the result accumulated by all the companies listed on Bovespa in the period.
The largest in organizations are Petrobras (oil and gas), Vale (mining), Bradesco (banking), Itaú (banking), Banco do Brasil (banking), Gerdau (ironworks), Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (ironworks), Usiminas (ironworks), Unibanco (banking) and Ambev (beverages).
Anba