Agility Logistics

Tarek Sultan Al Essa at the 2009 World Economic Forum

Tarek Sultan is the Chief Executive Officer of Agility. He was a past chair of the World Economic Forum Board of Governors for the Logistics and Transportation Industry.

Sultan holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of Wharton’s International Advisory Council. Before joining Agility, he was managing director of New York Associates, a regional investment banking firm, and an associate with Southport Partners, a U.S.-based corporate finance advisory firm specializing in the technology sector.

Agility began as a state-owned Kuwaiti company established in 1979 as Public Warehousing Co. (PWC). Tarek Sultan was named chairman and managing director when the company was privatized in 1997.

After privatization, Agility pursued a strategy of investment and expansion in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where many of its more established competitors had yet to set up. The company grew rapidly by acquiring other logistics companies and assets such as warehouses and trucks. Some of its most significant purchases included the USA-based companies Geologistics Corp., Transoceanic Shipping Co. Inc.,[1] WTS of Houston and Global Express Line. Also purchased were Singaporean company Trans-Link Group, Swiss company Cronat Transport Holding AG, Globe Marine Services of Saudi Arabia, Cosa Freight in China Kenya-based Starfreight, and Tristar transport of UAE. The company also expanded its Latin American operations with the acquisition of Trafinsa SA de CV in Mexico and Itatrans in Brazil.

By 2004, Agility, then still PWC, was the largest logistics provider in the Middle East. In 2006, the company unified its services under the new name of Agility with the brand slogan “A New Logistics Leader.”

Agility shares have traded on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE: AGLTY) since 1984 and the Dubai Financial Market (DFM: AGLTY) since 2006. Its estimated 14,000 shareholders include private and public institutions, along with individual investors. National Real Estate Co. (KSE: symbol) and Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security are two of Agility’s largest institutional investors. The company operates on a Jan. 1 – Dec. 31 fiscal year.

Agility annually publishes the Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index.[2] The Index offers a snapshot of logistics industry sentiment in a survey of supply chain executives and ranks the world’s 50 leading emerging markets based on their size, business conditions, infrastructure and other factors that make them attractive to logistics providers, freight forwarders, shipping lines, air cargo carriers and distributors.

In 2020, the company developed and conducted its 11th annual survey.[3] Over 780 supply chain and logistics executives worldwide were surveyed about the 2019 global economic outlook, prospects for emerging markets, key growth drivers and trends affecting emerging markets countries.

Agility’s sustainability[4] efforts focus on environment, community investments, humanitarian logistics, and fair labor.

Agility is actively engaged in Business for Social Responsibility’s Clean Cargo Working Group, and the Sustainable Air Freight Alliance (SAFA) where it has represented the freight forwarding industry in each group’s steering committee. In each of these groups Agility works collaboratively with shippers, carriers and freight forwarders to advocate for more sustainability in the cargo industry, as well as to help improve how industry stakeholders measure and manage CO2 emissions.

Agility is a partner of the UN Global Logistic Cluster’s Logistics Emergency Team (LET). The LET unites the capacity and resources of the logistics industry with the expertise and experience of the humanitarian community to provide more effective and efficient disaster relief” [5]

As a global business, Agility invests in education, community health and environment projects around the world to have a positive social impact in many communities in which it operates. Many of its projects focus on creating local education and employment opportunities. Agility’s partnerships focus on youth and education that include long-term relationships with schools and local charities to provide digital literacy programs and secondary education or vocational training with an aim to have at least 50% female students in all partnerships.

From 2003 to 2010, Agility supplied food and related products to U.S. troops and contractors in Kuwait and Iraq under a series of Prime Vendor contracts awarded by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

In May 2017, Agility and the U.S. Justice Department reached a legal settlement to resolve legal cases alleging that the company overcharged DLA on the food contracts. The company pleaded to a single-count misdemeanor involving a single invoice for $551. The misdemeanor was unrelated to the Justice Department’s original felony allegations. The company also agreed to a payment of $95 million to resolve parallel civil proceedings.[6]

• The 2009 BCG 100 New Global Challengers: How Companies from Rapidly Developing Economies Are Contending for Global Leadership
• The Top 50 3PLs, Logistics Management, June 1, 2009
• The World’s Top 3PLs, Arabian Supply Chain, August 17