FedEx Corporation is an American multinational courier delivery services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.^[2] The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express (now FedEx Express), which was used from 1973 until 2000. The company is known for its overnight shipping service and pioneering a system that could track packages and provide real-time updates on package location (to help in finding lost packages), a feature that has now been implemented by most other carrier services.^[3]

FedEx Corporation is an import/export company, incorporated October 2, 1997, in Delaware.^[4] FDX Corporation was founded in January 1998 with the acquisition of Caliber System Inc. by Federal Express. With the purchase of Caliber, FedEx started offering other services besides express shipping. Caliber subsidiaries included RPS, a small-package ground service; Roberts Express, an expedited shipping provider; Viking Freight, a regional, less than truckload freight carrier serving the Western United States; Caribbean Transportation Services, a provider of airfreight forwarding between the United States and the Caribbean; and Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology, providers of logistics and technology services. FDX Corporation was founded to oversee all of the operations of those companies and its original air division, Federal Express.^[5]

In the 1990s, FedEx Ground planned, but later abandoned, a joint service with British Airways to have BA fly a Concorde supersonic jet airliner to Shannon Airport in Ireland with FedEx packages on board, and then FedEx would have flown the packages subsonically to their delivery points in Europe. Ron Ponder, a vice president at the time, was in charge of this proposed venture.

In January 2000, FDX Corporation changed its name to FedEx Corporation and re-branded all of its subsidiaries. Federal Express became FedEx Express, RPS became FedEx Ground, Roberts Express became FedEx Custom Critical, and Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology were combined to comprise FedEx Global Logistics. A new subsidiary, called FedEx Corporate Services, was formed to centralize the sales, marketing, and customer service for all of the subsidiaries. In February 2000, FedEx acquired Tower Group International, an international logistics company. FedEx also acquired WorldTariff, a customs duty and tax information company; TowerGroup and WorldTariff were re-branded to form FedEx Trade Networks.^[5]

FedEx Corp. acquired privately held Kinko's, Inc. in February 2004 and re-branded it FedEx Kinko's. The acquisition was made to expand FedEx's retail access to the general public. After the acquisition, all FedEx Kinko's locations offered only FedEx shipping.^[5] In June 2008, FedEx announced that they would be dropping the Kinko's name from their ship centers; FedEx Kinko's would now be called FedEx Office.^[6][7] In September 2004, FedEx acquired Parcel Direct, a parcel consolidator, and re-branded it FedEx SmartPost.^[5]

In December 2007, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service "tentatively decided" the FedEx Ground Division might be facing a tax liability of $319 million for 2002, due to misclassification of its operatives as independent contractors. Reversing a 1994 decision which allowed FedEx to classify its operatives that own their own vehicles as independent contractors, the IRS audited the years 2003 to 2006, with a view to assessing whether similar misclassification of operatives had taken place. FedEx denied that any irregularities in classification had occurred, but faced legal action from operatives claiming benefits that would have accrued had they been classified as employees.^[8]

In June 2009, FedEx began a campaign against United Parcel Service (UPS) and the Teamsters union, accusing its competitor of receiving a bailout in an advertising campaign called "Brown Bailout". FedEx claimed that signing the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill, which would let some of its workers unionize more easily (and, according to the Memphis-based company, "could expose [its] customers at any time to local work stoppages that interrupted the flow of their time-sensitive, high-value shipments”),^[9] was equivalent to giving UPS a "bailout". Independent observers heavily criticized FedEx's wording,^[9] claiming that it was "an abuse of the term".^[9] FedEx Express employees are regulated under the Railway Labor Act.^[10]

On January 14, 2013, FedEx named Henry Maier CEO and President of FedEx Ground, to take effect after David Rebholz retired on May 31, 2013.^[11] On July 17, 2014, FedEx was indicted for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances in cooperation with the Chhabra-Smoley Organization and Superior Drugs.^[12] According to the U.S. Department of Justice, "FedEx is alleged to have knowingly and intentionally conspired to distribute controlled substances and prescription drugs, including Phendimetrazine (Schedule III); Ambien, Phentermine, Diazepam, and Alprazolam (Schedule IV), to customers who had no legitimate medical need for them based on invalid prescriptions issued by doctors who were acting outside the usual course of professional practice."^[13] A representative for the company contested these claims, stating that it would violate personal rights of customers to deny service and that "We are a transportation company — we are not law enforcement".^[14] On July 17, 2016 the Department of Justice U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed in a statement that it had asked U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer to dismiss the indictment but also did not say why.^[15][16][17]

In April 2015, FedEx acquired their rival firm TNT Express for €4.4 billion ($4.8 billion; £3.2 billion) as it looked to expand their operations in Europe.^[18][19]

In February 2016, FedEx announced the launch of FedEx Cares, a global giving platform, and committed to invest $200 million to strengthen more than 200 communities by 2020.^[20][21]

In March 2018, FedEx announced the acquisition of P2P Mailing Limited, a last-mile delivery service, for £92 million to expand their portfolio.^[22]

In September 2018, FedEx expanded FedEx Ground U.S. operations to six days per week due to the rise in demand for e-commerce^[23]

In January 2019, FedEx Trade Networks was re-branded to FedEx Logistics.^[24]

In May 2019, FedEx announced the expansion of FedEx Ground U.S. operations to seven days per week during the holiday peak season. The service will continue year-round beginning in January 2020 for the majority of the U.S. population.^[25]

On June 1, 2019, the authorities in China filed a case against FedEx for allegedly undermining the rights of Chinese clients.^[26] The investigation stemmed from allegations by Huawei that FedEx attempted to divert the shipping route of its packages without the company's prior authorization.^[27][28][29] which in turn have been denied by FedEx.^[27][28] It has been reported that FedEx refused to deliver a used Huawei phone into the US. Writers at PC Magazine tried to ship a Huawei P30 from a UK office to a US one to find it sent back a few days later.^[30][31]

In June 2019, FedEx announced they would not be renewing their $850 million contract with Amazon for the company's U.S. domestic express delivery business. Amazon accounted for 1.3 percent of 2018 revenues.^[32] In August 2019, FedEx announced the termination of ground deliveries for Amazon as well.^[33]

In July 2019, China accused FedEx of holding back more than 100 packages that Huawei was trying to deliver to China. The Chinese state media said that the company committed "violations" when it diverted Huawei parcels.^[34]

For the fiscal year 2018, FedEx reported earnings of US$4.572 billion, with an annual revenue of US$65.450 billion, an increase of 8.5% over the previous fiscal cycle. FedEx's shares traded at over $244 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$55.5 billion in October 2018.^[35] FedEx ranked No. 50 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.^[36] In June, 2019, investor Michael Burry of Scion Asset Management (from "The Big Short") reported taking a position in the company.^[37]

The FedEx logo is a wordmark designed in 1994 by Lindon Leader of Landor Associates, of San Francisco.^[38] It consists of Fed in purple and Ex in orange. The FedEx wordmark is notable for containing a subliminal right-pointing arrow in the negative space between the "E" and the "X", which was achieved by designing a proprietary font, based on Univers and Futura, to emphasize the arrow shape.^[38] Previously, the Ex was in a different color for each division and platinum for the overall corporation use. However, in August 2016, FedEx announced that all operating units will adopt the purple and orange color logo over the next 5 years (the same as the original FedEx logo, and later used by FedEx Express).^[39]

FedEx is divided into the following operating units:

The Standard Carrier Alpha Code (SCAC) is a unique code used to identify transportation companies. It is typically two to four alphabetic letters long. It was developed by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association in the 1960s to help the transportation industry for computerizing data and records. FedEx's codes include:

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, FedEx Corp is the 21st largest campaign contributor in the United States. The company has donated over $21 million since 1990, 45% of which went to Democrats and 55% to Republicans. Strong ties to the White House and members of Congress allow access to international trade and tax cut rebates as well as the rules of the business practices of the United States Postal Service. In 2001, FedEx sealed a $9 billion deal with the USPS to transport all of the post office's overnight and express deliveries.^[47]

In 2005, FedEx was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to sponsor the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.^[48][49][50]

During the first three months of 2010, FedEx spent nearly $4.9 million lobbying the federal government (UPS, FedEx's main competitor, spent $1.6 million on lobbying over the same period), a 4% increase from the $4.7 million spent during the last quarter of 2009, but more than twice what it spent on lobbying during the first quarter of 2009.^[51]

The firm was named by Fortune magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, citing the company's choice to downsize with voluntary buyouts rather than involuntary layoffs.^[52]

Some of FedEx's ad campaigns:^[53]

In 1981, their advertising firm Ally & Gargano hired performer John Moschitta, Jr., known for his fast speech delivery, to do an ad for Federal Express titled "Fast Paced World". This single commercial would be cited years later by New York as one of the most memorable ads ever.^[54]