King Cotton is alive and well in Memphis. Homegrown Dunavant Enterprises is one of the largest cotton traders in the world, handling more than 6 million bales of cotton per year. The company, which grew by selling aggressively to China and the Soviet Union, maintains cotton-buying offices in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and the southern US. Dunavant also maintains cotton ginning operations, which have a capacity of handling 700,000 bales (or more than 150,000 metric tons) of cotton every year. Dunavant Enterprises is owned by the Dunavant family and company employees.