It was a bad year for business and Accountancy's second annual survey of the UK's 100 most profitable listed companies inevitably reflects that. The company at number 50 in last year's survey reported a £317m profit; this year's number 50 reported just £206m. Last year's number 100 reported a £112m profit; the corresponding company this year reported just £78m.

But the news for those companies reporting losses is even more dramatic. The top loss last year, reported by Corus, was £1,349m. Four companies in this year's survey exceed that extraordinary figure, with Vodafone reporting a fantastic £9,763m loss. The £238m loss reported by Invensys in last year's survey, which earned it eighth place in our table of superlosers, would not even earn it a place in the top 20 this year.

Significantly, the top four lossmakers are all in the telecoms business. This is a by product of the sector's massive overvaluation in recent years. The larger telecoms companies used their highly-rated shares to pay silly prices for other telecoms companies. As realism has returned to the market, these investments have been written off through the p&l account.

The other sector to figure prominently here is media and photography, which provides four of the top 14 lossmakers. Here, there has been a real-world downturn in advertising revenues as well as a re-rating by the market, which has affected the value of investments.

As last year, the survey is limited to companies in the FTSE 350. However, we have excluded investment trusts from this year's survey and have recalculated the rankings for last year to reflect that. The accounts used are those for periods ending in the year 2001.

Last year we found that 28 of our top 100 were from outside the FTSE 100. This year's survey produces exactly the same result. You can read this either as evidence of the market's acumen and farsightedness in disregarding numbers that are (a) merely historical and (b) the work of accountants, or as evidence of its continuing remarkable optimism about certain companies and sectors.

Six firms have distinguished themselves by appearing for the second successive year in our superlosers table: Dimension Data, Telewest, CGNU, BSkyB, Corus and Colt. Of these, CGNU, BSkyB and Corus are in the FTSE 100.

There is more predictable consistency among the top profitmakers. Numbers one to four this year are precisely the same as numbers one to four last year. Eight of this year's top 10 were in last year's top 10. The two firms from last year's top 10 that have lost their places - BT and United Business Media - reappear among this year's superlosers.

As the economy recovers, we can expect rather better results next year. Also, as the worst of the acquisitions froth from the bubble market has now been written off through company accounts, we can expect less dramatic losses.

Investment trusts have not been included in this year's figures. The following companies had their figures converted from dollars at the rate applicable at their year-end: Anglo-American, AstraZeneca, BP, BHP Billiton, Lonmin, Shell, South African Breweries. Figures in brackets indicate last year's position. Mm02 figures taken from the listing document. For HBOS, last year's ranking shown is that of Halifax. (SL-) indicates position in last year's superlosers table. BPB and W H Smith also reported profits of £78m.