WORLD'S BEST COMPANIES 2004

Global Finance, Nov 2004 by Fittipaldi, Santiago, Hawser, Anita, Neville, Laurence

www.samsung.com

ENERGY SERVICES/ELECTRICITY

RWE

President and CEO: Harry Roels

Essen, Germany-based RWE is a leading international utility, providing electricity, gas, water and environmental services to more than 100 million customers, mainly in Europe and North America. The company employs 101,660 people worldwide, of whom 43% work outside of Germany.

RWE is selling off units to concentrate on its core business areas of energy and water. In September it began withdrawing from the waste-management business with the sale of RWE Umwelt to Rethmann. RWE sold the majority of its stake in the Hochtief construction group in February and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen in May.

Net income increased 23% in the first half of this year, mainly due to the one-off effects of capital gains from the companies it sold. RWE expects to achieve single-digit gains in operating results for the full year 2004, despite the divestments. RWE will use proceeds from the sale of non-core businesses to make investments in its core business rather than to reduce debt.

www.rwe.com

ENERGY SERVICES/EQUIPMENT

GE ENERGY

Chairman and CEO: John G. Rice

GE Energy, formerly known as GE Power Systems, is the world leader in power-generation technology and services. The Atlanta, Georgia-based unit of General Electric had 2003 revenues of nearly $18.5 billion.

In September 2004 it received a $37 million contract to supply three hydro turbines for a hydropower plant in China. In the same month it also was awarded a contract to supply distributed control systems in Saudi Arabia. The control systems will be installed at three power plants.

GE Energy recently completed the $260 million acquisition of BHA, expanding its environmental services capabilities. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, BHA has operations in 11 countries. It supplies parts, services and upgrades to reduce particulate emissions for power generation and industrial applications. GE says it sees potential opportunities to apply BHAs membrane technology in other GE industrial and consumer products.

As part of a reorganization of GE's business units announced in December 2003, some 4,000 of GE's Industrial Systems employees were moved over to GE Energy.

www.gepower.com

FOOD

CONAGRA FOODS

Chairman and CEO: Brace Rohde

ConAgra Foods, one of North America's largest packaged food companies, is slimming down as it gets out of the commodity business to focus on food processing and other higher-margin businesses. ConAgra now employs fewer than 40,000 people, down from 63,000 a year ago.

In May 2004 it completed the sale of its Spanish feed business to the Carlyle Group for $82.6 million. It also sold its Portuguese poultry business. ConAgra sold United Agri Products, an international crop-inputs distribution subsidiary, in November 2003.

ConAgra's sales rose 8%, to $3.5 billion, in the quarter ended August 29, 2004, mainly on strength in the retail products segment. Earnings slipped to $135 million from $195 million in the same period a year earlier. Operating profit rose 9%, to $341 million, despite increased input costs.