7 ASX blue chips vs their global twins: Are we backing the wrong companies?

In 2025, we ran an interesting exercise at Livewire: pairing some of the ASX’s biggest companies with global peers operating in the same industries.

The goal wasn’t to crown a definitive winner, but to compare fundamentals side by side - valuation, profitability, growth and capital allocation - and see where the numbers pointed.

Looking back, it proved one of the most instructive exercises we’ve done. Time and again, companies trading on more reasonable valuations and stronger operating metrics went on to outperform pricier rivals, particularly when backed by a credible growth story.

Take Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) versus Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG). When we ran the comparison in May 2025, Goldman traded on a lower P/E, generated higher return on equity and reinvested more heavily in its business while dominating U.S. capital markets. Since then, Goldman’s shares have rallied about 44%, while Macquarie has fallen roughly 10%.

Or consider Woolworths (ASX: WOW) versus Costco (NASDAQ: COST). Both were growing sales at roughly 3–5% annually, yet Woolworths traded on 23.7x earnings - less than half Costco’s multiple. Since then, Woolworths has gained more than 20%, while Costco has slipped roughly 5%.

The lesson is that even within the same industry, valuation and fundamentals eventually matter.

As 2026 starts to fly by, we’ve refreshed the exercise, lining up another group of ASX names against global peers to see where the next opportunities might lie.

Note: While we’ve used the most reliable data available, some international figures were difficult to obtain. These comparisons are not recommendations and are intended as a starting point rather than a full valuation model. They also do not capture every aspect of a company’s growth strategy. Data current as at 4 March 2026. Green highlights indicate the superior metric across the comparison tables. Not all metrics are highlighted.

Commonwealth Bank vs Toronto-Dominion Bank

This is arguably the most interesting comparison on the list.

For Australian investors used to paying premium multiples for the big four banks, the idea of buying a similarly dominant franchise on just 11 times earnings almost feels like a misprint.

You might wait a lifetime for CommBank (ASX: CBA) to trade that cheaply. Or you could simply cross the Pacific and buy Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD / TSX: TD).

TD is Canada’s second-largest lender and enjoys many of the same structural advantages as Australia’s major banks - strong population growth, a stable rule-of-law economy and a dominant position in its domestic market.

On most fundamental measures - valuation, capital strength, revenue growth and margins - TD compares very favourably with CBA.

So why the valuation gap? The bank spent several years under pressure following a U.S. anti-money-laundering investigation, eventually forking out US$3 billion in penalties.

With the issue now resolved and a new CEO in place, TD has begun simplifying operations and cutting costs. It also sold its US$13.1 billion stake in wealth manager Charles Schwab, with CEO Raymond Chun pledging to use the proceeds to boost buybacks, improve returns and focus on lower-risk organic growth strategies.

Given its valuation, balance sheet clean-up and potential re-rating catalysts, TD is certainly worth adding to the watchlist.

Coles vs Walmart

For anyone who has spent time in North America, it’s fair to say few retailers attract daily traffic quite like Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT).

The company has built an empire serving value-focused shoppers who buy everything from groceries to electronics in one place.

Yet the valuation difference between Walmart and Coles (ASX: COL) raises an interesting dilemma.

Walmart trades on a premium multiple despite relatively modest revenue growth. Investors appear to be betting the company can evolve beyond a traditional retailer.

Much of Walmart’s optimism is tied to its online business, where it competes directly with Amazon (so while Coles’ ecommerce growth rate is stronger, Walmart is operating within a vastly larger addressable market of American consumers). This enthusiasm has seen its stock soar ~30% in the past year, putting its market cap above US$1 trillion.

Coles, meanwhile, operates inside Australia’s highly profitable supermarket duopoly. Its margins remain strong, its dividend yield is higher, and its valuation is considerably lower.

Soul Pattinson vs Berkshire Hathaway

These are two of the most famous investment houses in their respective markets. Soul Patts is run by CEO Todd Barlow with strategic influence from chair Rob Millner, while Berkshire Hathaway’s empire is guided by Warren Buffett and his new CEO, Greg Abel.

Both companies are essentially capital allocation machines, deploying shareholder funds across listed equities, private markets and wholly-owned subsidiaries.

For Berkshire, those subsidiaries include giants such as BNSF Railway and GEICO, while Soul Pattinson holds stakes in businesses ranging from Brickworks to Aquatic Achievers Swim Schools.

Traditional metrics like revenue growth don’t mean much for companies like these. Selling a major asset or equity position can distort earnings and cashflows in any given year.

On the numbers alone, Berkshire appears stronger - generating higher returns on equity and trading on a lower multiple despite its vastly greater scale and financial firepower. But Berkshire management is reluctant to pay any dividends.

Credit to team Millner and Barlow. Soul Patts has been growing its book value - the underlying worth of the assets and businesses it owns - faster than its American peer, while also delivering a steadily rising dividend for more than 25 years. The catch? Investors currently have to pay a higher multiple for that track record.

One potential tie-breaker is alignment: Abel recently revealed he plans to invest his entire US$15 million after-tax salary into Berkshire shares each year. If that isn’t shareholder alignment, it’s hard to know what is.

CSL vs Eli Lilly

Few companies have dominated global healthcare markets recently quite like Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY).

The pharmaceutical giant has become one of the biggest winners of the GLP‑1 revolution, with blockbuster weight‑loss and diabetes drugs sending revenue growth into overdrive.

Lilly also boasts extraordinary profitability, with gross margins well above CSL’s (ASX: CSL), and it reinvests nearly double the proportion of revenue into research and development.

That spending is fuelling a pipeline spanning obesity, oncology, immunology and neurological disorders, while new oral GLP‑1 treatments could further expand its market.

CSL remains a world‑class biotechnology company with leadership in plasma therapies and rare disease treatments, but its growth profile has slowed in recent years as the company works through post‑pandemic disruptions to plasma collection, and more recently, questionable management forecasts and decisions.

Wesfarmers vs Home Depot

Both companies are exceptional retailers, but their business models differ.

Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is essentially a pure‑play home‑improvement giant heavily tied to North American housing cycles.

Wesfarmers (ASX: WES), on the other hand, is a diversified retail powerhouse spanning Bunnings, Kmart, Officeworks and various healthcare investments.

Housing is Australia’s national obsession, and renovating those homes - and filling them with things - is what we do. Wesfarmers has done an exceptional job capitalising on that trend.

On the numbers, Wesfarmers edges out its American rival on most key metrics, most notably same-store sales growth. That’s an important measure because it shows the business isn’t relying solely on new store openings to drive growth - it’s getting customers to keep spending at existing locations.

On this one, it’s hard to see why you’d need to go offshore.

NextDC vs Equinix

If anyone claims Australia lacks high‑quality technology infrastructure companies, NextDC (ASX: NXT) is a compelling counter‑example.

The company has become Australia’s leading data‑centre operator, riding the global surge in demand for AI infrastructure and cloud computing capacity. We compare it to Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX), the world's largest data centre company.

Some of the metrics below - such as data centre capacity, the number of facilities, and planned new builds - are included mainly to illustrate the sheer scale difference between the two companies. But size alone doesn’t determine success in this industry.

What ultimately matters is the unit economics of how those assets are operated, and on that basis NextDC appears to be outpacing its larger peer - with stronger revenue growth, better margins and lower gearing.

That said, comparisons are not perfectly apples‑to‑apples. Equinix operates as a U.S. REIT, meaning it distributes much of its income to shareholders, while NextDC reinvests heavily into building new capacity.

While NextDC isn’t profitable yet, but it appears to be capitalising on the strong demand linked to the AI and cloud computing boom.

Evolution Mining vs Eldorado Gold

It’s the Winter Olympics: Gold Mining edition - featuring two great (albeit very friendly) rivals, Australia and Canada.

Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN) is an ASX market darling. It has delivered fantastic returns by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right commodities - gold and copper - largely operating in Australia while also owning the Red Lake mine in Canada.

Eldorado Gold (NYSE: EGO) / TSE: ELD), meanwhile, operates mines in Canada and Europe and, following a recent acquisition, will be adding the McIlvenna Bay project in Saskatchewan and Skouries in Greece - giving it a ramp-up in gold production and a meaningful foothold in copper. This makes both miners' business mix similar.

If we look purely at the current metrics, it’s hard to beat Evolution. It digs metals out of the ground cheaper, generates stronger margins, pays a dividend and carries very little debt.

But it is missing one key ingredient: a powerful growth catalyst. Evolution is expecting to produce roughly the same amount of gold and copper in FY26 as it did last year, give or take.

Thanks to its acquisition of Foran Mining, Eldorado expects to ramp up gold production roughly 40% by 2027, while also generating meaningful revenue from copper for the first time this year.

This one is a tough call. Both look as good as gold… provided the gold price holds up.

Use diversification to your advantage

The broader takeaway isn’t that global companies are always better than their ASX peers.

But with Australia representing barely 2% of global equity markets, investors who limit themselves to domestic names may be overlooking some of the world’s strongest businesses or better opportunities in the same sector.

Sometimes the smarter move isn’t replacing an ASX holding altogether - it’s simply asking whether a better version of that company exists somewhere else in the world. After all, that’s the luxury modern investors have thanks to trading platforms offering increasingly cost-effective access to the world's great equity markets.