Market cap

* For banks, enterprise value is substituted with market cap. Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P.

Performance of the brand

Exxon is the brand name of a chain of petrol stations as well as motor fuel and other related products operated, or licensed by parent company ExxonMobil. From 1972 to 1999, Exxon was the corporate name of the company previously known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey or Jersey Standard. Exxon Mobil was formed from the merger of Exxon and Mobil, another major American oil firm, previously known as Socony.

ExxonMobil is one of the world’s ‘major six’ oil companies counting 83,600 employees led by chief executive and chairman Rex Tillerson.

Positive Aspects

Has just commenced ‘fracking’ in Poland

Exxon has recently completed hydraulic fracturing, ‘fracking’, at its first site in Poland, Krupe 1, and will now move on to Siennica 1, near the capital Warsaw.

Negative Aspects

Faces a lawsuit for failing to clean up a 1200 barrel spill

The spill from ExxonMobil’s Silvertip pipeline contaminated parts of the Yellowstone river. Clean-up operations were hampered by flooding but  Cliff Edwards, an attorney from Billings, Montana, has filed a class-action suit against Exxon in Yellowstone Country on behalf of eight landowners who are seeking compensation for damage to their land and businesses.

 

 

Esso is beginning to move away from downstream operations, focussing instead on midstream operations and exploration, in particular it is attempting to capitalise on newer forms of oil and gas extraction. These include ‘fracking’, the process of pumping a mixture of water and pressurised gas underground to release reserves of natural gas in seams in the earth’s crust. Exxon has a large presence in Poland, which is thought to have the largest reserves available for fracking in Europe. Another example is the acquisition of XTO, which specialises in the development of unconventional resources, in 2010.

Most significant was their plan, announced in 2008, to withdraw from retail sales, instead they will license the Esso, Exxon and Mobil brands to gas/petrol station operators. For a brand that has suffered some seriously negative brand associations in the recent past (from allegations of poor outreach to minorities, multiple pollution incidents such as the Exxon Valdez disaster and a boycott over inaction on climate change) a focus on the future is a shrewd strategic move.

League tables

ExxonMobil appears in the following brand league tables:

Rank 43 in the Global 500 2012.
Rank 55 in the Global 500 2011.
Rank 55 in the Global 500 2011.
Rank 76 in the Global 500 2010.
Rank 29 in the Global 500 2009.
Rank 48 in the Global 500 2008.
Rank 42 in the Global 250 2007.