> motherload of all heavy industry vendor financing
I doubt they are bigger than other national "heavy industry" champions from East Asia and Western/Central Europe. Without checking, I would guess that the global leaders are Boeing and Airbus.
Back in the day GE (including GE Capital) was, on paper at least, the largest company in the world when it comes to market cap, my memory is fuzzy but I’d say that happened just after the Dot Com crash and going into the Great Recession. Greater than a heavy industry company like Samsung, yes. Again, this was in a big part as a result of GE Capital doing very scammy things, but for a good few years Jack Welch was regarded like an actually business guru.
