Sector distribution overview between 2007 and

Regarding the distribution of the ranking in accordance to the sector where companies belong, there are some sectors that present specific features during the period from 2007 to 2017.

The leading sectors of the ranking are mainly Banking sector, Technological one; and Infrastructures, construction and services. However, since 2013 onwards, new sectors have gained presence such as Clothing and retail as well as Generalised distribution.

Figure 4. Sector distribution overview from 2007 to 2017. Source: Author’s elaboration from MERCO’s ranking

data.

First of all, as observed in figure 4, we provide a general view of the three main sectors presented before.

The Banking sector represents the biggest share but also the greatest instability of the ranking. It accounted for more than 12 companies during the primary years of the period analysed, which coincides with the beginning of the economic crisis from 2007 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Num ber o f Co m pa nies Sector

Sector distribution overview from 2007 to 2017

37 to 2009. Actually, in 2009 it represented 14%6 of total sectoral distribution. However, from 2010 onwards, the reputational assessment of companies belonging to that sector dropped, which implied an overwhelming reduction of companies from the banking sector present in the ranking. Despite this fact, currently, it is still a leading sector which gained positions in 2016 accounting for 10 banking companies such as Santander or BBVA both in the third and fifth position respectively7.

Regarding the Technological sector, the first period from 2007 to 2010 presented a stable trend in which this sector accounted for more than 6 technological companies. However, during the following years, there is a constant down sloping trend, where just two technological companies remain as well-assessed in the top of the ranking, the case of the big players Apple and Google as shown previously in figure 3.

The Infrastructures, construction and services sector presents higher stability than the two sectors presented before. Actually, there is an up-scaling trend during years, reaching its maximum in 2016 when its representation augmented from 6% in 2007 to 9% in 20168. Some companies within this sector are Abertis which was ranked in the 48th position in the ranking of 2016 as well as AENA and Acciona ranked in the 35th and 38th position respectively in 20179. Therefore, in this case the importance of the sector is not given by the most-well assessed companies, as it happened in previous sectors, but by the increasing number of companies related to that area.

Furthermore, there are other categories that also show interesting patterns, for instance the Generalised distribution with companies such as Carrefour or Amazon. This category shows an increase of 3% from 2013 onwards10. Moreover, as observed in Figure 4, from 2010 on, there are more than 4 companies of this sector. This fact may be due to an increase of e-commerce through retailers such as Amazon. Here, we make special mention of El Corte Inglés which dropped considerably in 2014 until the 32nd position, far away from the top ones it was used to be placed in. This specific issue will be addressed in depth in the following sections.

6 _{See Figure A3 on the Appendix 2.} 7 _{See figure 3.}

8 _{See Appendix 2.} 9 _{See Appendix 1.} 10_{See Appendix 2.}

38 Besides, Energy, gas and water sector exhibits a great stability through years with around 4 to 6 companies present in the MERCO ranking including Repsol, placed almost these 10 years in the fourth position11; or Iberdrola, also included in the top ten companies of MERCO. Actually, this category represents about 4% to 6%12. Telecommunications is following the same trend but with lesser presence in the ranking. Finally, it is remarkable the patterns presented by Clothing and retail, Automotive and Tourism and hostelry.

Firstly, Clothing and retail moved from a stable period to almost the triple since 2013. Here, Inditex is the consecutive leader since 2012 placed in the 1st position13 of the most well assessed companies reaching a punctuation near or even equal to 10.000 points14. In addition to it, other companies such as MANGO, Nike or Desigual also belong to that sector.

The Automotive sector is up-sloped since 2011 onwards. Indeed, in that year some companies such as Toyota and BMW entered in the ranking. Currently, they are valued in the 56th and 49th position respectively. Generally, in both cases, they followed a positive evolution over the years scaling up positions reaching their maximum punctuations in 2014 and in 2016, respectively, for Toyota in the 33rd position and for BMW positioned in the 40th place15.

Regarding the Tourism and hostelry, it follows a down sloping trend reducing its presence on the sector from 5% in 2012 to 2% in 201716.

The final remark deals with the Real Estate sector which, as shown in figure 4, does not have any company accounting for it since 2007, a year previous to the early stage of the economic crisis.

11 _{See Figure 3.} 12 _{See Appendix 2.} 13 _{See Figure 3.} 14 _{See table 3.}

15 _{See Appendix 1. Overview of the top100 companies included in MERCO ranking from 2007 to 2017} 16 _{See Appendix 3. Sector distribution of the top 100 companies from 2007 to 2017.}

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