Investing in top UK companies in the FTSE 100

Investing in top UK companies in the FTSE 100

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For investors looking to invest in large and well-established UK companies, the FTSE 100 index is a popular starting-point for further exploration.

The FTSE 100 index broadly consists of the largest 100 qualifying UK companies by full market capitalisation. It is a capitalisation-weighted index and it represents around 70% of the total market capitalization of the companies listed in the LSE Main Market.

Below, we will take a look at a few of the FTSE 100 companies with the highest market capitalisation, as of 2021.

Unilever

unileverUnilever is a British-Dutch consumer goods company. In 2020, Unilever’s Dutch and UK arms were unified under a single entity based on London, England.

Unilever products are available in roughly 190 different countries, under a wide range of brands. Many of the Unilever products are of the kind that you would find in a supermarket: food products, beverages, candy, pet food, household cleaning products, and personal hygiene products.

A few examples of the circa 400 brands belonging to Unilever are Lipton, Sunsilk, Dove, Axe/Lynx, Hellmann’s, Knorr, and Lux. Over a dozen Unilever brands each have sales exceeding €1 billion annually.

Unilever invests a lot into R&D and operates research and development facilities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States, China, and India.

Unilever was formed in 1929, through the merger of the the Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie and the British soapmaker Lever Brothers. Since then, Unilever has made many high-profile corporate acquisitions. Among the more recent ones, we find the high-end, eco-friendly laundry and household cleaning products company The Laundress (acquired in 2018), Pukka Herbs (2017), and Dollar Shave Club (2016).

In March 2020, Unilever announced that it would donate over €100 million worth of soap, hand sanitiser, bleach, and food to help combat the Covid19 pandemic.

Trading

  • LSE: ULVR
  • Euronext: UNA
  • NYSE: UL

Unilever has a primary listing on the LSE and a secondary listing on Euronext Amsterdam. It is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

BHP

bhpBHP is the trading entity of BHP Group Limited and BHP Group plc. BHP has large mining operations in Australia, North America, and South America, and large petroleum operations in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Trinidad & Tobago, and Algeria.

BHP is a dual-listed company, as the Australian BHP Biliton Limited and the British BHP Biliton plc are separately listed with separate shareholder bodies, while conducting business as one operation with identical boards of directors and a single management structure.

The English-registered plc arm has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

BHP Billiton Limited

  • ASX:BHP
  • NYSE: BHP

BHP Billiton plc

  • LSE:BLT
  • NYSE: BBL
  • JSE:BIL

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch ShellRoyal Dutch Shell is generally one of the most profitable oil and gas companies in the world, even though it hit a rough spot in due to the Covid19 pandemic and reported a historic net loss of over 20 billion USD in 2020. This was chiefly caused by reduced transportation fuel demand during the pandemic.

The company reported a revenue of 180.54 billion USD for 2020, of which 134,9 billion was oil product revenue. Still, the net loss for 2020 landed on -21.5 billion USD.

Royal Dutch Shell was formed in the early 20th century through a merger between a British and a Dutch petroleum producer. The company is headquartered in The Hague in the Netherlands, but also has a large registered office in London, England.

Shell is vertically integrated and active on every level of the oil and gas industries, doing everything from exploration to end-user sales. Examples of important business areas are exploration, production, refining, distribution, marketing, power generation, and trading.

In the 21st century, Shell has become increasingly active in the renewable energy market, especially biofuels, hydrogen and wind. Shell owns 50% of Raízen, a joint-venture formed in 2010 from the merger of the assets of sugar, fuel and ethanol derived from sugar from Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell in Brazil. Raízen is today the third-largest energy company in Brazil.

Trading

  • LSE: RDSA
  • Euronext: RDSA
  • NYSE: RDS.A, RDS.B
    PSE: SHLPH