New Zealand’s two members of the Forbes Global 2000 saw vastly differing results across a financial year that devastated companies worldwide.

The list is an annual ranking of the top 2000 publicly companies worldwide by sales, profit, assets and market value.

Telecom New Zealand, still shuddering after having its monopoly status shattered over the last decade, saw competitive regulation go up, and its divisional separation of its network, retail and wholesale arms over a troubled financial year.

This lead to a ranking slide of 480 spots. It now sits at 1575, down from 2008’s 1095 but still better than 2007’s 1965.

Fletcher Building has had a rough year due to its controversial purchase of Formica, which critics allege was an overpriced purchase, especially given economic conditions. Despite announcing some $500 million in capital raising recently, Fletcher still managed to boost it’s ranking slightly to 1720 from 1796. It did not appear on the list at all in 2007.

Petrol companies have taken the place of the major banks – no surprise in the current climate. The Top 5 worldwide in 2009 were General Electric, Royal Dutch Shell, Toyota Motors, ExxonMobil and British Petroleum.

Last year, that list was HSBC, General Electric, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and ExxonMobil.

Despite the worldwide failure of major banks, there are still 307 of them in the top 2000 due mostly to their massive asset totals.

Australian companies Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank, which own ASB and BNZ respectively, sat at 59 and 67, while Westpac and ANZ sat at 91 and 109.

BHP Billiton, owners of Southland's Pike’s Point aluminium smelter, was at 57.

Origin Energy, owners of Contact, sat at 732, Westfield at 961, Coca Cola Amatil at 1732, Fairfax at 1932.

AMP and Macquarie were at 418 and 435 respectively.

The rankings span 62 countries, with the U.S. still dominant at 551 members, but that is 200 fewer than in 2004, when we first published this global list.

Behind the United States’ 551 companies on the list were China with 91, Korea with 61, and India with 47

Forbes says Global 2000 companies now account for $32 trillion in revenues, $1.6 trillion in profits, $125 trillion in assets and $20 trillion in market value.

“The Global 2000 continues to amass revenue and assets, but lately, that has not translated into wealth creation or profits. In the past year, combined profits were down 31% while market value was down 49%,” the report says.