Privatization

Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) is the leading supplier of translators for the U.S. military for the war in Afghanistan. Founded in 2006 by Chad Monnin, a U.S. Army Special Forces reservist who was injured in a parachute accident, and two of his colleagues, the firm benefitted from the performance problems of Titan Corp., the company (now part of L-3 Communications) that had been the dominant translation contractor for the U.S. forces in Iraq in the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The JSW Group is a $3.7 billion worth conglomerate with interests in steel, energy, minerals and mining, aluminium, infrastructure and logistics, cement and IT. The Group projects its power sector company, JSW Energy, as one of its companies to watch out for. JSW's projects, notably its power plants in Jaigad, in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra, and its plans to set up aluminium smelters and mines in the tribal tracts of Andhra Pradesh have attracted significant resistance from local communities, including farmers.

Suez Environnement is one of a handful of global companies that dominate the contentious business of providing drinking water and waste collection services on a for-profit basis. Operating in about 30 countries, it provides water services to some 76 million people and trash services to 51 million. Suez Environnement was previously a part of the French services conglomerate Suez but was spun off in 2008 when Suez merged with Gaz de France to form GDF Suez, which retains a 35 percent holding in Suez Environnement.

The Madras Aluminium Company Ltd. (MALCO) is part of Vedanta Resources, a London listed metals and mining major with Aluminium, Copper and Zinc operations in UK, India and Australia. MALCO is a primary Aluminium producer in South India with operations encompassing mining, refining, smelting and power generation.

Bechtel has probably done more than any other corporation to shape the built environment of the planet. For the past century it has overseen construction of many of the world’s largest bridges, dams, pipelines, refineries, smelters, nuclear power plants, subway systems and airports as well as entire cities in places such as Saudi Arabia. Its ability to win these contracts has been aided by the company’s large network of relationships with the power elites of the United States and many other countries.

GlaxoSmithKline plc is a British based pharmaceutical, biological, and healthcare company. GSK is a research-based company with a wide portfolio of pharmaceutical products covering anti-infectives, central nervous system (CNS), respiratory, gastro-intestinal/metabolic, oncology, and vaccines products. It also has a Consumer Healthcare operation comprising leading oral healthcare products, nutritional drinks, and over the counter (OTC) medicines.

Accenture Ltd. is the largest consulting firm in the world, incorporated in Bermuda with its main U.S. office in Chicago, Illinois. It has made the outsourcing of jobs into big business.

The company was established as the consulting wing of Arthur Andersen, Andersen Consulting, splitting off in 2000, when it changed its name to Accenture.

'''Sodexo''' (Sodexho Alliance prior to 23 January 2008, Euronext: SW) is a French multinational corporation and one of the largest food services and facilities management companies in the world. It is present in 29,000 sites within eighty countries, earning revenue in 2007 of €13.385 million. Sodexo has two major lines of business: food and facility management services, and service vouchers and cards.

Stanley Inc. (also known by the name of its subsidiary Stanley Associates) is a rising star among providers of information technology and business process outsourcing services to the U.S. federal government, particularly the Department of Defense, from which it gets about two-thirds of its revenues. The rest comes from civilian agencies ranging from the Department of Justice to the Library of Congress. At the end of its last fiscal year, the company had a contract backlog worth about $975 million.

URS Corporation has used a series of acquisitions—most recently Washington Group International—to propel itself to the top tier of international engineering firms, joining the likes of Bechtel and Fluor. The company is also a major contractor to the U.S. federal government (the source of 41% of revenues in 2007) in the areas of systems engineering, technical assistance, operations and maintenance. Much of the federal work flows through URS’s EG&G Division.