What are the largest companies on the London Stock Exchange?

A summary of the 10 largest listed companies on the London Stock Exchange in terms of market cap

The team at Easy Equities have recently announced that UK and EUR stocks are now available on the platform, giving South African Retail Investors access to both the United Kingdom and European equity markets. You may be wondering what shares are on these foreign equity markets that you now have access to. This article will take a look at the 10 largest companies that are listed on the LSE (London Stock Exchange).

AstraZeneca

Ticker Symbol: AZN

Market Cap: 170b

Share Price: 10 934

AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas including oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory, and inflammation. It has been involved in developing the OxfordAstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Shell

Ticker Symbol: SHEL

Market Cap: 150b

Share Price: 2 043

Shell operates as an energy and petrochemical company in Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, the United States, and the Rest of the Americas. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids markets and transports oil and gas produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market.

HSBC

Ticker: HSBA

Market Cap: 106b

Share Price: 527

HSBC provides banking and financial services worldwide. The company operates through Wealth and Personal Banking, Commercial Banking, and Global Banking and Markets segments. The Wealth and Personal Banking segment offer retail banking and wealth products. This segment serves personal banking and high-net-worth individuals. The Commercial Banking segment provides credit and lending, treasury management, payment, cash management, commercial insurance, and investment services commercial cards international trade and receivables finance services foreign exchange products capital raising services on debt and equity markets and advisory services. It serves small and medium-sized enterprises, mid-market enterprises, and corporates. The Global Banking and Markets segment offers financing, advisory, and transaction services and credit, rates, foreign exchange, equities, money markets, and securities services and engages in principal investment activities. It serves government, corporate and institutional clients, and private investors.

Unilever

Ticker: ULVR

Market Cap: 97b

Share Price: 3 837

Unilever operates as a fast-moving consumer goods company. It operates through Beauty & Personal Care, Foods & Refreshment, and Home Care segments. The Beauty & Personal Care segment provides skin care and hair care products, deodorants, and skin cleansing products. The Foods & Refreshment segment offers ice cream, soups, bouillons, seasonings, mayonnaise, ketchup, and tea categories. The Home Care segment provides fabric solutions and various cleaning products. Some note-worthy brands Unilever operate through include Domestos, OMO, Ben & Jerry's, Knorr, Magnum, Dove, Lifebuoy, Lux and Vaseline.

GlaxoSmithKline

Ticker: GSK

Market Cap: 89.b

Share Price: 1 748

GSK, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology.

British American Tobacco

Ticker: BATS

Market Cap: 76b

Share Price: 3 377

British American Tobacco provides tobacco and nicotine products to consumers worldwide. It offers vapour, tobacco heating, and modern oral nicotine products combustible products and traditional oral products, such as snus and moist snuff. The company offers its products under the Kent, Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Rothmans, Camel, Newport, Natural American Spirit, Vapour, THP, and Modern Oral brands.

Diageo

Ticker: DGE

Market Cap: 81b

Share Price: 3 531

Diageo together with its subsidiaries, produces, markets, and sells alcoholic beverages worldwide. It provides its products under the Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan's whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodka, Casamigos, DeLeon and Don Julio tequilas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Tanqueray, and Guinness brands. The company has operations in North America, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Asia Pacific, and internationally.

BP

Ticker: BP

Market Cap: 75b

Share Price: 389

BP engages in the energy business worldwide. It operates through Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Oil Production & Operations, Customers & Products, and Rosneft segments. It produces and trades in natural gas offers biofuels operates onshore and offshore wind power, and solar power generating facilities and provides de-carbonization solutions and services, such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. The company is also involved in the convenience and mobility business, which manages the sale of fuels to retail customers, convenience products, aviation fuels, and Castrol lubricants and refining and trading of oil products, as well as operation of electric vehicle charging facilities.

Rio Tinto

Ticker: RIO

Market Cap: 81b

Share Price: 4 850

Rio Tinto Group engages in exploring, mining, and processing mineral resources worldwide. The company offers aluminium, copper, diamonds, gold, borates, titanium dioxide, salt, iron ore, and lithium. It also owns and operates open pit and underground mines, mills, refineries, smelters, power stations, and research and service facilities.

Glencore

Ticker: GLEN

Market Cap: 57b

Share Price: 431

Glencore plc produces, refines, processes, stores, transports, and markets metals and minerals, and energy products in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. It operates through two segments, Marketing Activities, and Industrial Activities. The company produces and markets copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, lead, chrome ore, ferrochrome, vanadium, alumina, aluminium, tin, and iron ore.