Cargill

> Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. If it were a public company, it would rank, as of 2015, number 15 on the Fortune 500, behind McKesson and ahead of AT&T.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill

The OP's claim about the "largest companies being private" isn't exactly true...

Just a caveat, that’s in term of revenue.

McKesson is a drug wholesaler, so if they buy a case of an expensive drug for $999K and sell it for $1M, that’s $1M in revenue.

Koch industries is "probably" high, also an extraction company. Cargill is another (livestock, energy trading) But you don't know profits.

Im not sure what the parent is talking about Cargill, the largest private company in the US, is much smaller than Apple is.

Cargill is a pretty big private company, but not sure how they would compare to Apple.

Much smaller. Their revenues are in the range of $115 billion/year (compared to ~265 billion for Apple), but they are in a range of much lower margin businesses. Meanwhile, Apple sells a line of extremely high margin items. It's estimated that iphone X parts cost around $370 to make, for a phone that sells for $1000.

What private organizations have assets which compounded in value over centuries?

European insurance companies. The Hudson Bay Company, maybe?

There are restaurants in the U.S. that are a couple of centuries old. They might own the building by now.

Is the Catholic Church a private organization in this context?

One that surprised me was Fidelity investments. It's huge company held privately by a single family. Not centuries old and probably nowhere near as profitable as Apple though.

I don't know. That's the point :)

> I do wonder how many people know that the wealthiest companies are private

Well then this was a misleading thing to say. You don't know that this is true

You are correct, and I apologize for making such an assertion without any evidence.

I think what I meant more was the conflation of wealth and power, and the need to look beyond just the name of a certain corporation. Autocratic rulers don't technically run a corporation nor sit on the board, but I doubt anybody would defy their orders if asked. In that sense, they do "own" the corporation. This is also not mentioning the nature of shell and holding corporations which obfuscate liability and ownership, but operate according to their owner's wishes despite their disjoint legal nature.

But no I can't find any proof that any are bigger than the largest publicly traded corporations, so again, sorry.