Global Industrial Company

What does Global Industrial Company own?

The company owns the Global Industrial distribution business, private-label brands including Nexel, Interion, Paramount, and Absocold, and acquired operations including C&H Distributors, Avenue Industrial Supply, Indoff, and Infotel. It is a single-segment distributor.

Is Global Industrial Company publicly traded?

Yes. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GIC and is a Russell 2000 component. Its market capitalization was about $1.78 billion in November 2026.

Who founded Global Industrial Company?

The business was founded in 1949 as Global Equipment Company by the Leeds family in New York City. The modern corporation is broadly held by public shareholders and led by CEO Anesa Chaibi.

Where is Global Industrial Company headquartered?

The company is headquartered at 11 Harbor Park Drive in Port Washington, New York, United States, on Long Island's North Shore.

How many brands does Global Industrial Company own?

Its portfolio includes the Global Industrial flagship plus private labels Nexel, Interion, Paramount, and Absocold, and acquired brands including C&H Distributors, Avenue, Indoff, and Infotel.

Who owns Global Industrial Company?

Public shareholders own the company. It is broadly held by institutions and retail investors, with no controlling shareholder. The Leeds family that built the predecessor businesses no longer controls it.

What was Global Industrial Company called before?

The company was known as Systemax Inc. from 1999 until June 2021, when it renamed itself after its dominant Global Industrial brand. Before that it was called Global Directmail.

The business started in 1949 as Global Equipment Company, a New York supplier of material handling equipment. The Leeds family expanded it into catalog direct marketing in the 1970s and added computer equipment in the 1980s, building a mail-order operation that spanned industrial and technology products.

The corporate name changed with the strategy. Global Directmail was adopted in 1995 as the businesses consolidated, and Systemax in 1999 as technology products became the bigger story. The company built and acquired a family of computer and electronics direct sellers, most prominently TigerDirect, alongside the industrial MRO operation run under Global Industrial.

The 2010s brought a deliberate unwinding of the technology businesses. TigerDirect's consumer business was sold in 2015, and the company exited its European operations and divested the remaining IT products units. By the early 2020s the industrial MRO business was essentially the whole company.

In June 2021 Systemax renamed itself Global Industrial Company after its surviving flagship brand. The focused strategy has worked: revenue grew from about $947 million in 2019 to $1.38 billion in fiscal 2025, with fourth-quarter 2025 sales up 14.3 percent. The quarterly dividend rose 7.7 percent to $0.28 per share in early 2026, and CEO Anesa Chaibi described 2025 as a year of solid execution across the business.

No significant regulatory actions, restatements, or controversies are on record for the company in its current form. The notable scrutiny in its history concerned the legacy technology businesses, including a 2015 settlement-related coverage of TigerDirect's era, all of which predates the 2021 refocusing. The current industrial distribution operation carries a clean public record.