Blessed with great timing, investment funds and industry smarts, London-based Max Petroleum Plc jumped on a rare opportunity to buy a stake in the oil-rich Pre-Caspian Basin in 2005 and snapped up lucrative oil and gas licenses to 5,212 square miles of land—about the size of Connecticut—in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic bordering the Caspian Sea.

The founders of Hunter Roberts Construction Group all gained high-level experience while working for a large, local company and shared a common vision: to apply their knowledge in a flexible, more client-focused environment.

How many people realize how commonly airlines actually own just a few aircraft, holding 80 percent or more of their liveried fleet under a five- or ten-year operating lease? GOALis a joint venture company owned by KGAL GmbH & Co. (KGAL) and the German national airline, Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa). These are a couple of the most experienced players in the airline industry; the Lufthansa group’s fleet of aircraft is the third-largest in the world, and KGAL has financed well over 300 aircraft in its time.

Fast 'n Fresh is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Imperial Group of companies, the holding company being listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. An operating company within the Consumer Products division of Imperial Logistics, Fast ‘n Fresh has its headquarters in Cape Town. It services the entire country from there and from a large and very modern distribution and fleet maintenance facility that was commissioned in Centurion, Gauteng, early in 2007, as well as a smaller depot in Durban.

Three years ago, construction commenced on a new coal-fired power station in South Africa’s Limpopo Province, near the town of Lephalale, close to the border with Botswana. Named Medupi—which means ‘rain that soaks parched lands, giving economic relief’—the plant will consist of six 800 megawatt units which will come online progressively, with a completion date of 2015.

Even before terrorists flew hijacked airplanes into the Pentagon building outside Washington, DC on September 11, 2001, Bybee Stone Company had already worked on several projects atthe headquarters of the US military. When efforts to rebuild the Pentagon were put on a fast track, Bybee’s existing relationships and its unique skill set helped it become the cut-limestone supplier for the project.

UK defence firm Supacat has won a £45 million contract from the Ministry of Defence to supply more than 140 Jackal military vehicles to troops in Afghanistan.

10. Norilsk Nickel

Norilsk Nickel is a nickel and palladium  mining  and smelting  company. Its largest operations are located in the Norilsk–Talnakh  area, in northern Russia. MMC stands for "Mining and Metallurgical Company".

Germany-based BASF will buy Cognis from its owners—the US investment bank Goldman Sachs and the UK private equity group Permira—at an equity purchasing price of €700 million.

BASF said that it expects the household products additives maker to help it weather economic turbulence. BASF's core chemicals and plastics business currently relies on industries such as automotive and construction, both of which have been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

Something happened to Robbie Doyle on the way to medical school. He decided to take a six-month break after graduating from Harvard to work at Hood Sailmakers in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He never looked back. The intuitive grasp of the forces of wind and water that made Doyle a natural dinghy sailor as a youth and, years later, an applied physics major in college turned out to be invaluable assets in designing fast, light and powerful sails.