Freight and logistics After graduating from college, Crane went into the insurance business. He moved to Houston in 1980, and in March 1984, Crane borrowed $10,000 from his sister and founded Eagle USA Airfreight, an air-freight logistics business. Eagle USA Airfreight later became Eagle Global Logistics, and then EGL, Inc., and moved into the supply-chain management and information-services business. In August 2007, EGL merged with United Kingdom-based
CEVA Logistics, owned by American private equity capital management and leveraged-buyout firm
Apollo Management L.P. Crane owned about 17.6% of EGL's stock at the time of the merger. He had wanted to do a leveraged, management, or combination buyout of EGL, prior to the merger with CEVA, but was unable to obtain financing on acceptable terms. Later, after Crane obtained equity backing, he initially offered $36 per-share for EGL, but Apollo then engaged in a bidding war and the shareholders eventually went with the Apollo/CEVA offer of $47.50 per share. He was opposed to the EGL and CEVA merger. Crane took his profits from EGL and formed Crane Capital Group. He also became a director and shareholder (less than 1%) in Western Gas Holdings, LLC, the general partner in Western Gas Partners, LP, a midstream (mainly pipelines and natural gas gathering assets) energy company operating in the southeastern Rocky Mountain region and southern Mid-Continent area (Oklahoma and Texas) of the United States. Also, Crane Capital Group invests in gas lines and freight shipping ports in the
Russian Federation and the
People's Republic of China. Western Gas Holdings and Western Gas Partners were acquired by
Anadarko Petroleum. and director of both
Nabors Industries and natural gas company Western Midstream.
Houston Astros Crane first attempted to become a baseball owner in 2008, when he approached
Drayton McLane about buying the team. However, he backed out at the last minute before a handshake deal could be done. He made bids to buy a team in both 2009 (for the
Chicago Cubs) and 2010 (for the
Texas Rangers), but neither effort succeeded, with the latter bid reportedly being rejected due to the influence of McLane despite reportedly being a better deal than the accepted one. In May 2011, Crane reached an agreement to purchase the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball (MLB) from McLane for a reported $680 million. He was unanimously approved by MLB on November 17, 2011. MLB Commissioner
Bud Selig intended for Houston to change divisions from the six-club
National League Central to the four-club
American League West. Crane received $35 million bumps from McLane and the MLB in exchange for this league-change stipulation, which was previously committed to by McLane. When Crane purchased the team, they were coming off a season in which they won only 56 games. During his tenure as owner, the Astros experienced a turnaround in which they had three consecutive 100-win seasons (
2017–
2019), including
World Series victories in
2017 and
2022. During the
2022 regular season, the Astros won 106 games, the second-highest total in franchise history.
Other businesses Crane opened two restaurants in Houston in 2017, Osso and Kristalla, and Potente, named for his children. That year, he also started a commercial safety supply and training company called Crane Safety, and acquired Davaco, a company that manages and executes high-volume remodels and technology deployments. Also in 2017, Crane started a software company called Modiant to focus on digitizing freight and transportation management. In 2019, he became a partial owner at Aperture Cellars, a winery in
Sonoma County and several franchises of
Papa John's in
Russia. A scratch golfer, Crane has been ranked as the nation's top CEO golfer. In April 2010, he purchased
the Floridian National Golf Club from
Wayne Huizenga. The Floridian in Palm City, Florida, recently completed major renovations and additions under the supervision of architect
Tom Fazio. "It was two things (owning a team and a golf course) that I never thought I would be able to accomplish," Crane mused at his Floridian National Golf Club's reopening. "I was able to pull it together and I am very happy about it." == Controversy ==