As middlemen, they traditionally bought and sold raw materials, financed building projects and sold finished goods around the world, earning fat commissions.
It sold finished programmes and the occasional format and poured virtually everything it received in return straight back into new BBC programmes – whether or not all those new programmes were ever really likely to provide a return on the investment in terms of future programme sales.
"Most of these companies are selling finished goods," said Eva Greger, managing partner of GMO Renewable Resources, the timber management unit of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, a money manager based in Boston.
As the central tool of the Saudi Kingdom's economic and foreign policy, Saudi Aramco, with its broadening reach in global refining and petrochemical markets, can enhance Saudi influence in China and other emerging global centers while it profits from selling finished products that fetch higher prices than crude oil.
And then it sells finished goods on the store.
In addition to preparing original papers from scratch with data provided by their clients, China's paper-selling companies fabricate data, arrange to add scientists' names to already accepted papers, and sell finished manuscripts.
Not only will hardware manufacturers be able to sell finished goods through the marketplace, but they'll also be able to make them available for testing to beta users, as well as take pre-orders for their products.
By the 1600s Birmingham formed the commercial hub of a network of forges and furnaces stretching from South Wales to Cheshire and its merchants were selling finished manufactured goods as far afield as the West Indies.
(As recently as 2002, I was designing, selling, finishing, bookkeeping, doing all the deliveries, and cleaning the bathrooms).
Its oil and gas operations consist of transporting, storage and selling finished petroleum products, entirely in the People's Republic of China.
"594 curries sold, 397 finished".
