Special delivery for FedEx: Bill Ackman?

An activist investor would find no shortage of things to criticize at FedEx Corp. Offering up solutions is more complicated.

Speculation bubbled up again this week about whether the parcel-delivery company might draw the attention of a change-seeking shareholder. FedEx shares are down by a third over the past year as the company battles U.S.-China trade tensions, the challenges of integrating its TNT Express acquisition and the seemingly never-ending cost of adapting to a reality where Amazon.com Inc. is both the company’s greatest gift and its biggest headache. FedEx this week said it would cease U.S. ground deliveries of Amazon shipments, after earlier letting a U.S. air-delivery contract with the e-commerce giant lapse. Maybe Amazon was giving FedEx the least profitable parts of its shipping volume and saving the higher-density deliveries for its own burgeoning network of vans and fulfillment centers, so the math no longer worked. But FedEx says Amazon accounted for only about 1.3% of its sales last year, making the move mostly a symbolic protest. Some have wondered whether FedEx is trying to bolster its relationship with Walmart Inc., although I’m unconvinced that retailers will shift business away from United Parcel Service Inc. en masse just because that carrier still works with Amazon. I tend to think FedEx realized Amazon was using its services as a base upon which to build a competing logistics platform and decided to break with Amazon before Amazon breaks up with it.