Lieutenant Motors comes to Asia

To be fair to CNBC they did come up with a fun piece on GM this morning as well, which noted that

"... the world's largest auto maker has a stock market value of only about $7 billion. That compares with a market cap of about $56 billion in 2000, when the stock was at its all-time high of $94.62 a share.To put that in even more perspective, GM's market value is now roughly equivalent to that of tax-preparation provider H&R Block and toy-maker Mattel."

The obvious blogger thing to do would be to apply their "analysis" to Asia... which is pretty much exactly what I have done here:

• GM's market cap is US$6.5bn, just ahead of Bank Rakyat Indonesia (hardly a titan even in Indonesia) at US$6.4bn and a little behind broker Yuanta of Taiwan at US$6.6bn.
• A little higher, you find palm oil plantation Golden Agri-Resources at US$6.7bn and noodle company Tingyi at US$6.8bn. (We like frying and we like our noodles in Asia.)
  
• A full billion bucks bigger than GM you get, ironically, auto parts company, Hyundai Mobis at US$7.5bn. (Not Hyundai Motors, mind you, which would cost you 2.5 GMs.)
  
• For two GMs you could get one SIA, Keppel Corp or... High Tech Computer (!!!)
  
• Three GMs would get you one OCBC Bank, but you'd need to top up a bit to get a whole Kookmin Bank.
• Four would almost (not quite) get you China Communications Construction Company
• Add another GM and you could talk to HK Superman Li Ka-Shing about his flagship Cheung Kong...

At the top of the pile in listed "Asia ex-Japan" you get Petrochina (60 GMs), China Mobile (42 GMs) and ICBC (38 GMs). Global giant HSBC trails along at #5 in Asia (30 GMs.) The biggest manufacturer in Asia is Samsung Electronics at 14 GMs (or 2 x Sony, for that matter.)

Heady analysis indeed!