Expeditors International of Washington, Inc.

Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. is a global logistics and freight forwarding company that purchases cargo space from airlines, ocean carriers, and trucking lines on a volume basis and resells it to customers, while also providing customs brokerage, warehousing, and supply chain solutions across more than 60 countries. In fiscal 2025 the company generated $11.07 billion in revenue, $1.05 billion in operating income, and $810 million in net earnings attributable to shareholders, operating from 172 district offices with approximately 20,000 employees.

This is a story about a business whose economics are unusually good for its industry — asset-light, cash-generative, nearly debt-free, and built on a rare compensation structure that aligns local management incentives with corporate returns — navigating one of the most volatile trade environments in decades. The tariff rebalancing that began in early 2025 has been both a headwind and a tailwind: it has disrupted traditional freight lanes and depressed ocean rates, but it has also made customs brokerage, Expeditors' highest-margin and fastest-growing segment, more essential than ever.

The file turns on a single question: whether the structural growth in customs brokerage — driven by trade complexity that shows no sign of diminishing — can compound earnings at a rate that justifies the current multiple, or whether Expeditors remains at its core a cyclical bet on global trade volumes that happens to be enjoying a favorable moment.