Though Illinois-based Medline says it’s the largest private manufacturer of medical supplies in the US, outside healthcare, it’s hardly a household name.

That may have changed in December 2025, when it went public at a valuation of over $50 billion and raised $6.26 billion, making it the largest IPO of the year. Five members of Medline’s founding Mills family became billionaires.

The IPO followed on a leveraged buyout in 2021, in which Medline, then family-owned, was acquired by PE funds Blackstone, Carlyle, and Hellman & Friedman for about $34 billion.

CFO Mike Drazin, who joined Medline from Fortune 300 company Illinois Tool Works in 2018, said the IPO process took around 18 months, longer than anticipated, due in part to factors like tariffs and the government shutdown. But having a long runway turned out to be a positive thing.

Keep reading.—CV

Get ready to go back in time four years, to 2022. Zac Rogers, an associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University, said the current oil crisis resembles the oil crisis when Russia invaded Ukraine.

The difference this time, Rogers said, is that the percentage of oil globally impacted by the war in Iran is roughly double that of the 2022 war.

“When Russia invaded Ukraine, that took 10% of all the oil off the board, and it also took a big source of fertilizers off the board. Well, we’re seeing the same thing now, basically the biggest difference being that the Strait of Hormuz being closed, it’s not 10% like it was with Russia and Ukraine; it’s 20% of the oil,” he explained.

According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, Rogers said, in the week of March 9, US diesel costs jumped an average of $0.96 per gallon, to $4.86, “which is the biggest one-week jump in the data” that goes back to 1994.

Keep reading.—DL

With today’s scam artists becoming spam artists, good luck getting to inbox zero ever again

Jeff Sample, IT consultant and senior industry development manager for trades at construction-collaboration platform Bluebeam, said that he and his industry peers have been seeing “subscription bombing,” where bots overwhelm a victim with thousands of legitimate newsletters, digital services, and mailing lists.

The idea is to overwhelm your inbox so you miss legitimate invoices—and fall for fraudulent ones.

In early 2025, IT Brew reported on a subscription-spamming tactic, in which adversaries blast inboxes with a flood of messages, then call up as “IT” to add malware under the guise of saving the day.

What Sample is seeing is slightly different: The spammed inbox buries legitimate emails, leaving an opening for an adversary to throw a fraudulent bill on top of the growing pile.

Keep reading on IT Brew.—BH

What’s the five-letter word for takes home, as a salary? If you think you know, try your hand at volume 2 of the Morning Brew Book of Crosswords (this clue’s on page 20). Now with free shipping for CFO Brew readers.