The name Samuel Zemurray is not well known, but the man led a remarkable life in every sense of the word. Zemurray fought his way to the top of a very niche industry: bananas. When he first acquired the Cuyamel Fruit Company, it was a husk of a business — left behind by its former owner. Over the span of the next twenty years, Zemurray would build it into the second-largest company in the industry. Then, a fortuitous merger ensured that Zemurray would control much of the world’s banana trade.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://commoncog.com/c/cases/sam-zemurray-banana-king