Colombia is situated mainly in the northwest of South America with some territories in the Central America. Colombia is bordered with Panama, Venezuela, Brazil Ecuador and Peru, while its maritime border limits with Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominical Republic. Colombia is the third most populous state in Latin America and almost five times the size of the UK.

Colombia has a relatively advanced and diverse economy, as well as economic and political stability. Entrepreneurs have numerous opportunities in various sectors, especially in niche areas. Main industries include textiles, clothing and footwear, food processing and beverages, petroleum, chemicals, cement, and automobiles, coal, gold and emeralds as well as consumer appliances. Its main exports are coal, crude oil, coffee and non-ferrous metals.

Colombia is home to numerous local and multinational corporations. Below is the list of top five biggest companies in Colombia.

Ecopetrol
Ecopetrol, previously known as Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos SA is the biggest company in Colombia and its main activity is oil and gas extraction and other operations. As a result of efficient operations and continuous growth, the company managed to enter the Fortune Global 500 top as among the biggest companies in the world measured by revenues. In 2012, Ecopetrol was the 346th biggest company in the world according to Fortune Global 500 top. It also was among the 25 biggest petroleum companies in the world and one of the 4 principal petroleum corporations in Latin America. Since then, the company has lost some of its income year after year and with its revenues of nearly 16 billion USD in the financial year 2016 was not included in Fortune Global 500 top of biggest companies in the world but is currently number 559th company in Forbes Global 2000 top.

The biggest company in Colombia was founded 1921 and currently has headquarters in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. Exploration is one of the key activities of the company. It has achieved numerous significant steps in the exploratory segment, especially in the search for hydrocarbons offshore. Some of them are Rydberg together with companies Shell and Nexen, Lion with Repsol as well as part of the team to discover Orca-1, which is the first such discovery in the deep water of Colombian Caribe. Other business activities include production, innovation, science and technology, transport, supply and marketing.

Grupo Aval
In recent years, Grupo Aval has managed to grow in terms of revenues and surpass Bancolombia to take the second place in the top with biggest companies in Colombia. Grupo Aval is a holding company headquartered in Bogota, Colombia and operating mainly in Colombia and Central America. The company is engaged in wide variety of activities, such as banking, telecommunications and real estate. The holding is controlled by Luis Carlos Sarmiento with directly and indirectly owning over 90% of the company’s shares.

Grupo Aval is the owner of BAC-Credomatic operating in Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Florida in the US. Additionally, the holding owns enough shares in other companies to control their operations. Most of them are financial institutions in Colombia: Banco de Bogota SA, Banco de Occidente SA, Banco Popular SA, Banco AV Villas SA, etc.

Grupo Aval takes the 693rd place in Forbes Global 2000 top with 8.5 billion USD in revenues and figures in many other Forbes based tops: #88 in Top Regarded Companies, #377 in Assets, #899 in Profit and #1289 in Market value.

Bancolombia
Bancolombia with its operating income nearly 7 billion USD in 2016 is the second largest commercial banking financial institution in Colombia and among the top biggest in Latin America. The bank was founded in 1945 and currently headquartered in Medellin, Colombia. Bancolombia is a full-service bank that provides a broad range of financial products and services to a diversified corporate and individual customer base not only in Colombia, but also in such jurisdictions as Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, the United States, Australia, Spain, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Bancolombia operates in nine segments: Banking Colombia and Banking El Salvador, Trust, Investment, Leasing, Pension and Insurance, Brokerage, Offshore and All other.

In cooperation with its subsidiaries and partners, Bancolombia provides a broad range of products and services, such as financing, savings and investment, mortgage banking, financial and operating leases, factoring, treasury, foreign currency, comprehensive cash management, bancassurance and insurance, investment banking, brokerage services, as well as asset management and trust services. With earnings of 6.7 billion USD Bancolombia takes the 724th place in Forbes Global 2000 top.

Banco Davivienda
Banco Davivienda is a Colombia-based bank founded in 1972 and with headquarters in Bogota, Colombia. It is currently a part of Grupo Bolivar, the third biggest financial institution in Colombia by profits and assets. Banco Davivienda offers financial services to corporate and individual customers as well as the rural sector. Banco Davivienda currently is number 1374 in the Forbes Global 2000 top with 3.3 billion USD.

Grupo Bolivar
Grupo Bolivar is a holding company with over 70 years of experience and operating in various sectors, such as financial, insurance and construction. Interestingly, although Grupo Bolivar had a slightly bigger amount of revenues than Banco Davivienda, Forbes has placed it below its daughter company – it takes 1546th place in Forbes Global 2000 top.