Swire Group
| Swire Group
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Limited Company |
| founding | 1816 in Liverpool , Great Britain |
| Seat | Hong Kong |
| management | James Hughes-Hallett |
| Number of employees | 125,000 (Dec 2007) |
| sales | UK £ 2,990m (Dec 2007) |
| Branch | Conglomerate |
| Website | www.swire.com |
The Swire Group is a multinational corporation that is active on five continents. The group is headed by a privately owned holding company , John Swire & Sons , based in Hong Kong . It is active in five business areas through numerous subsidiaries: ocean shipping, land transport, cold stores, agriculture and agricultural trade.
In addition, John Swire & Sons has a number of equity investments, of which the 36.5% stake in Swire Pacific Limited (ISIN HK0019000162) is the most important. This company is based in Hong Kong and is listed in the Hang Seng Index . Its main businesses are: real estate, hotels, beverages, shipping, food and commerce. It is also the largest shareholder in the airline “ Cathay Pacific ” (ISIN HK0293001514) with 40% and in the aviation service company “ Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company ” with 33.5% .
John Swire & Sons also has a direct 72% stake in the Southeast Asian shipping and trading company “ Steamship Trading Company ”.
history
The "Swire Group" was founded in 1816 by John Swire (1793–1847) in Liverpool ( Great Britain ). Initially nothing more than a small import-export textile trade, John Swire & Sons began importing cotton from the USA to Great Britain.
When this was no longer possible in 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War , the company turned to the tea and silk trade with China, initially through agents. In 1866 a subsidiary was founded in Shanghai ( Empire China ) together with RS Butterfield . This company, called Butterfield & Swire, was wholly owned by John Swire & Sons after only two years, but retained its old name for more than a hundred years. Economically successful, Butterfield & Swire was able to set up a branch in Hong Kong just four years after it was founded . To promote trade in China, it had also acquired a Chinese name, “Taikoo” (太古), which means “big and old”.
In the same year the parent company John Swire & Sons moved its headquarters from Liverpool to London. It now also had offices in Manchester ( UK ), New York ( USA ) and Yokohama ( Japan ).
In 1872 John Swire & Sons founded " The China Navigation Company " in London to operate a small merchant fleet of paddle steamers on the River Yangtze (China). Within a decade, the shipping company expanded its route network along the entire Chinese coast and on to Australia and New Zealand . Lines to Europe and North and South America followed later.
After the People's Republic of China was proclaimed in 1949, Butterfield & Swire was forced by the communist rulers to cease all activities in China. From then on, business in China was concentrated in Hong Kong. In 1948 Butterfield & Swire had already bought 45% of the "Cathay Pacific", which had been founded two years earlier in Hong Kong. In 1974, John Swire & Sons decided to reorganize their business in Hong Kong. Butterfield & Swire therefore renamed itself "John Swire & Sons (HK) Ltd" and brought its activities to the listed company "Swire Pacific" in return for an equity stake. The latter, in turn, emerged from the “Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Co.” controlled by John Swire & Sons.
In 1976 John Swire & Sons took a stake in the company " James Finlay " (also known as Finlays), which was founded in Glasgow ( Great Britain ) in 1750, and in 2000 took it over completely. James Finlay successfully entered the plantation business (tea, rubber , wood, cut flowers) in East Africa ( Uganda , Kenya ) and Sri Lanka .
various
The rivalry between the Swire Group ( Rothwell-Gornt ) and Jardine Matheson Holdings ( Noble House ) is taken up in the novel Noble House by the writer James Clavell .