Respect in business is hard won; the respect of your rivals doubly so. This is why MT’s annual Most Admired Company award is so coveted ­ to have earned the admiration of one’s peers is high praise. This year, the oil giant Shell shook off City criticism and tough challenges from newly demerged AstraZeneca and previous winners Tesco and BP to take the top spot for the first time in a decade. But BP’s CEO Lord Browne can console himself with his third successive Most Admired Leader award. Chris Blackhurst reports

If Stephen Byers had second thoughts when he pulled the plug on Railtrack, a sneak preview of MT’s Most Admired Companies rankings for 2001 would have hardened his resolve. Because one of the abiding themes of this year’s list is not at the top but at the bottom, where one company came last or second-to-last in every single category.

The 10 largest companies in Britain in 24 sectors were asked to evaluate their peers in different categories on a scale of 0 to 10. And Railtrack trailed in every one: quality of management; financial soundness; quality of products and/or services; ability to attract, develop and retain top talent; value as a long-term investment; capacity to innovate; quality of marketing; community and environmental responsibility; and use of corporate assets. Quite an achievement. Indeed, D Michael Brown of Nottingham Business School, the compiler of the survey since its inception 12 years ago, says it is unique ­ ‘quite remarkable, no other company has performed quite so badly’.

Enough, though, of corporate failure. Suffice to say that Railtrack’s woeful showing is proof of just how uncannily prescient the annual MT ranking is. The Most Admired table is really about success. Topping the list is Shell Transport & Trading. This is the second time that Shell has won the accolade of Britain’s Most Admired Company ­ the earlier occasion was 10 years ago. ­ yet its pre-eminence is still a surprise. In winning, the oil group beat off the more fashionable high-growth pharmaceuticals of AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, last year’s victor, and high-profile retailers such as Tesco and Next.

Also, Shell defeated arch-rival BP, which has a much sharper public image. In recent years, BP has comfortably seen it off, not only in these league tables, where it has consistently outperformed the smaller company, but in the market, where Lord Browne of Madingley (formerly plain old Sir John), BP’s chief executive, has steered a relentless course of expansion. As a result, BP is widely seen as the sexier of the two; the one whose boss is revered throughout industry; the one that has indulged in spectacular dealmaking; the one that has kept up to date with a modish (and, it must be said, expensive) re-branding exercise.

Not this year. Dear, unloved Shell, the Ernie Wise to BP’s Eric Morecambe, the quieter Hove to BP’s Brighton, the cautious Gordon Brown to the flashier Tony Blair, has come up trumps.

At first sight, it is hard to see why. BP has had another triumphant year; Browne, for an incredible third time in a row, has picked up the Most Admired Leader award. But this year is different. Even before 11 September, there was a feeling of forbearance in the air, of stolid determination. In the summer, the global economy was already turning chilly. Prudence, that word beloved of the chancellor, became the order of the day and Shell, a company that favoured a more conservative approach, was chosen.

D Michael Brown describes the mood thus: ‘When it’s raining and the landscape is flooding, people cluster around the strongest mountains – they go where they feel safest.’ Pragmatic Shell, headed by the anonymous Philip Watts since Sir Mark Moody-Stuart retired in the summer, was seen as a secure haven.

continued. . .