Agility built a freight empire across the emerging world, sold it to a Danish rival for stock, and used the proceeds to buy airports' ground crews and fuel tankers instead. Here is how a Kuwaiti warehousing company became a holding company for the plumbing of global trade.
ABM began with a bucket, a sponge, a mop and $4.50. Today it sells something far more complicated: the promise that airports depart, data centers stay awake and ballparks are ready before the gates open.
GE Aerospace sells some of the most complicated machines humans make. The deeper business begins after delivery, when decades of maintenance, data and parts turn an engine under the wing into a long-lived service relationship.