Profit and Loss Scotland

In the annual listing of Scotland's biggest firms, with turnover above £20m and measured by a formula of turnover, profit and workforce compiled by the Scottish Business Insider magazine profits across the Top 500 were up 34% but if you exclude the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland total profits fell 17% to £7.9bn, on turnover of £159bn. Of the Top 500, 167 firms saw profits decline, while 298 saw them rise.

Leaving aside the banks, profit per employee - with 571,000 employed across the 498 others - has nearly halved since before the financial crunch, to £12,900.

Some big players in the Scottish economy have no separate Scottish accounting with which to list them. So there's no sign of Diageo, with 40% of the Scotch whisky industry, nor big employers like the supermarkets (except for Tesco Bank, based in Edinburgh), nor big-employing outsourcers such as Capita, Serco and Mitie, no BP or Shell, nor big manufacturers such as BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

Some big multi-national corporations do publish figures for Scottish operations, or more often UK operations based in Scotland. And notable among them in this year's listing are the offshore oil and gas explorers and producers. They were among the big fallers, as the sector saw turnover down 12% (in this listing) to £7.4bn. Profits tumbled too. Maersk Oil North Sea (UK), part of the Danish giant, reported a £367m loss, moving it from 26th to 309th position. Dana Petroleum, owned by the South Korean state oil corporation, made a £462m loss, moving it from 20th to 312th position. Petrofac Scotland plunged to a £351m loss, Asco Group lost £308m, Faroe Petroleum reported a £166m pre-tax loss, Taqa Bratani (owned in Abu Dhabi) lost £351m and Ithaca Energy (headquartered in Canada) lost £82m. The oil and gas figures only reflect the start of the oil price downturn, which began gathering pace in autumn of that year.

The top ten companies include five in financial services and five in various forms of energy, it's a reminder how concentrated the economy has become in very few, quite volatile sectors. Something the optimists in the nationalist movement should note.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-35272103