The story
Founded by James Matheson and William Jardine on Jul 1, 1832.1
19th century to WWII: The early days
The firm of Jardine, Matheson & Company emerged in 1832 from an evolving process of partnership changes in the trading business Cox & Reid, a partnership established in 1782 between John Cox and John Reid, the latter having been agent of the Austrian trading company, Trieste Company.
University of Edinburgh Medical School graduate William Jardine (1784–1843) joined the firm, by then having morphed through Cox & Beale, Beale & Company and Beale & Magniac into Magniac & Company, and the original partners long gone, in 1825 at the invitation of principal Hollingworth Magniac. University of Edinburgh graduate James Matheson joined three years later as Magniac prepared to retire. With the cession of Hong Kong under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the firm, by then named Jardine, Matheson & Company, set up its headquarters on the island and grew rapidly, smuggling illegal opium from British-controlled India into China. Jardine Matheson has been called the "most successful opium smuggling company in the world".
Both Jardine and Matheson became members of Parliament in Britain, and Matheson also bought the entire Scottish island of Lewis, clearing over 500 families off the land and shipping them to Canada in order to build Lews Castle. Continuing its longstanding trade in
smuggled opium, tea, and cotton, the firm diversified into other areas including insurance, shipping, and railways.
By the mid-19th century, the company had become the largest of the hongs or foreign trading conglomerates with offices in all the important Chinese cities as well as Yokohama, Japan. One of its branch agencies, Glover and Co., established in Nagasaki, was known in Japan as an arms dealer who contracted with then-rebel forces from Chōshū Domain who led the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
Jardine Matheson invested in the first commercial railroad in China, the Wusong-Shanghai railroad. It was built in July 1876, bought by the Qing dynasty the next year, and demolished the next year.
In the early decades of the 20th century, Jardines built cotton mills, a press packing plant, and a brewery in Shanghai while expanding into Africa, America, and Australia. When war came to China in 1937, the firm suffered heavily both in Hong Kong and in mainland China.
After the 1949 foundation of the People's Republic of China, trading conditions for foreign companies under the new Communist regime became increasingly difficult.
Read the full text
Post-WWII restructuring and expansion
The firm listed in Hong Kong in 1961. The landmark Mandarin Hotel opened in Hong Kong in 1963 as the city's first five star hotel.
In 1970, Jardine Fleming, the first merchant bank in Asia, opened for business while a real estate company and sugar plantations in Hawaii and the Philippines were acquired. A Hong Kong building boom in the mid 1970s saw Jardine's buy Gammon Construction, the largest construction and civil engineering group on the island. A presence was re-established on the mainland in 1979 following China's reform and opening up and a year later the firm established the Beijing Air Catering, the first foreign joint venture in the country since 1954. During the 1970s Jardines also expanded their insurance interests with acquisitions in the United Kingdom and the United States laying the groundwork for the foundation of Jardine Insurance Brokers.
By 1980, the firm had operations in southern Africa, Australia, China, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, as well as the United States, and employed 37,000 people. After re-domiciling to Bermuda in 1984 ahead of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, in 1990 Jardine Matheson Holdings and four other listed group companies arranged primary share listings on the London Stock Exchange in addition to their Hong Kong listings. Other significant developments during this decade included the merging of Jardine Insurance Brokers with Lloyd Thompson to form Jardine Lloyd Thompson, the acquisition of a 16% interest in Singapore blue-chip Cycle & Carriage and Dairy Farm’s purchase of a significant stake in Indonesia's leading supermarket group Hero. Hotel brand Mandarin Oriental also embarked on a strategy to double its available rooms and improve returns.
The first decade of the new millennium saw Jardine Cycle & Carriage acquire an initial 31% stake in Astra International, which has since been increased to just over 50%. Hongkong Land became a Group subsidiary for the first time following a multi-year programme of steady open market purchases while Jardine Pacific raised its interest in Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited from 25% to 42%.
In 2018, Jardines sold its 41% interest in Jardine Lloyd Thompson to Marsh and McLennan Companies.
With the coming of a new generation of Keswick family leadership, diversification of assets has slowed down and the firm has focused more on consolidation of existing properties. Contrary to public perception of the firm avoiding investing into mainland China, preferring instead to seek profits in Southeast Asia, its subsidiary Hongkong Land spent 4.4 billion dollars buying a plot of land in Shanghai which, according to Jonathan Galligan of CLSA, signifies its commitment to doing business in mainland China. Moreover, according to informal calculations by Bloomberg, in 2019 the share of company profits from mainland business ventures is the third largest at 255.4 million USD. All in all, as of 2021 the company's annual report states that 55% of its profits come from China, as opposed to 42% and 3% earned in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world respectively.
Following a restructuring of the complex shareholding system designed to prevent a hostile takeover in 2021, Jardine Matheson consolidated Jardine Strategic as a wholly owned subsidiary.
From Wikipedia’s article on Jardines (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5