●Taikoo
Taikoo was originally a small import and export company in Liverpool and officially opened in the early 19th century. The company's founder, John Swire (1793-1847), was a Yorkshireman born in the prosperous mill town of Halifax. His family were landowners there for more than 150 years, until the late 1750s, when his grandfather entered the wool trading business. However, in the 1790s, with the rise of the New World in America, the wool industry faced competitive pressure from cheap imported cotton, causing John Swire's grandfather and father to declare bankruptcy one after another.
John Swire, who was only in his teens, decided to go to Liverpool for development. At that time Liverpool was a prosperous trading center in England. He first worked as an apprentice in a relative's import agency. He worked hard and, after just a few years, finally opened his own company in 1816. John Swire's business mainly revolves around his old line of business - the textile industry, operating a New Orleans raw cotton import business and a Lancashire cotton product export business. Under his painstaking management, the small company is prospering day by day and its business is booming. By the time John Swire died in 1847, the trading company he left to his two sons, John Samuel Swire and William Hudson Swire (1830-1884), was already quite large.
John Samuel Swire (1825-1898) was only twenty-two years old at the time, but he was already a very outstanding businessman. His entrepreneurial qualities laid the foundation for the company's subsequent achievements. In his twenties, he traveled throughout the United States and once held the postal franchise of Arkansas, USA, and achieved great success. In 1854, he sailed to Australia to pan for gold. Although he returned in vain, he successfully established a branch in Melbourne in 1855. Although he quickly handed over this business to an agency, the establishment of Swire Bros. shifted the focus of the business from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the company took an important step. The business in Melbourne later developed into a trading business exporting various goods to Australia, ranging from barbed wire, cement, olive oil to Guinness beer. The British Swire Group engaged in the bottling business of Guinness beer in the 1860s and exported it overseas under the name of Dagger Stout.
In 1861, the American Civil War broke out. John Swire returned to Liverpool before the war broke out. However, soon after, the Civil War had a disastrous impact on the cotton trade. Fortunately, the brothers had sold their shares in the Evangeline and Theodore, the two cotton trading sailing ships they first owned in the 1850s, so that they could turn to trade with China without any worries, importing precious tea and silk from China, and China It has also become a potential textile export market for them.
●China and other places
For many years, China has been closed to the outside world. It was not until the Treaty of Nanjing was signed about twenty years ago and many ports were opened to foreign trade that China began to enter the world. world market. Prior to this, foreign trade companies could only set up shops in the port in the south of Guangdong (Guangzhou). After a quarter of a century, the focus of Western trade with China shifted to Shanghai, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River.
However, China and the UK were far apart, and Chinese agents lacked vigor in doing business. John Swire soon wanted to conduct more direct transactions. It was at this time, in 1865, that John Swire was approached by an old friend, Alfred Holt, a Liverpool shipowner. Holt was an engineer who designed a new type of steamboat that could travel quickly and consume less fuel. He suggested using this kind of ship to steal the tea ship business from Liverpool to the Far East. Under his lobbying, Swire readily agreed to invest in his friend's Ocean Steam Ship Company (later renamed Blue Funnel Line), and Holt agreed that if Swire planned to set up its own business in Shanghai, he would let Swire serve as its Chinese agent. people.
John Samuel Swire was deeply encouraged by Holt's proposal, so he went to Shanghai in 1866.
On December 4 of the same year, "North China Daily" published a small notice announcing the official establishment of a company called Butterfield & Swire. Richard Shackleton Butterfield is a partner in Swire, a Bradford wool and worsteds manufacturer that is one of Swire's largest export customers. As a result, their cooperation did not last long. After just two years, the partnership ended, but the new company still retained the Butterfield name for a hundred years. In order to match the local tradition, John Swire soon gave the company a Chinese name - Taikoo Yangxing. "Swire" means grand scale and long history. In fact, this name is still well-known in Asia.
By 1870, Swire already had branches in Yokohama, Japan, many ports in China and Hong Kong, as well as offices in Manchester and New York. Its British headquarters was moved from Liverpool to To London, to this day.
After arriving in Shanghai, John Swire was struck by the potential of steamships sailing along the Yangtze River, which at the time was the only way for trade between the West and China's interior. With the support of Alfred Holt and his Clyde shipyard, Scotts' Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Swire established the Swire Shipping Company, which was incorporated in London and appointed by Swire & Company to manage management positions in Shanghai. John Swire immediately ordered three Mississippi-style paddle steamers for the new company - the Peking, Shanghai and Yichang. Before three new ships arrived in China, he had purchased the assets of the Union Steam Navigation, which had just declared bankruptcy, thereby acquiring valuable properties along the Yangtze River basin and two steamships. The old ship "Signal" of the Equitable Steamship Company became the first ship to sail under the Swire flag in 1873.
In just one year, John Swire purchased two coastal trading boats from Scotts' for an auxiliary business. John Swire named this business Coast Boats Ownery (CBO). The company soon developed a monopoly on the Chinese coast - the soybean cake trade. "Bean cake" is a fertilizer made from the remaining soybean shells after soybeans are pressed into oil. It is mainly used in fruit-growing areas in the south. By 1883, CBO merged with Swire Shipping Company. At that time, CBO's charter network had spread all over Southeast Asia, and it had opened routes to Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
The business of Swire Shipping Company is becoming increasingly diversified, prompting the company to explore new business areas. The first operation began in 1881, when the company acquired a number of large-scale land parcels in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong Island. Soon after, it began to build the Taikoo Sugar Refinery, which was put into operation in 1883. Due to Swire Shipping Company's growing trade in raw sugar imported from Java, the Philippines and North Queensland, coupled with the two ready markets of China and Japan, Swire Sugar's sugar refinery became the largest and most advanced plant in the world. By the end of the nineteenth century, the company had a small fleet of sugar-carrying ships.
At that time, the fleets of Blue Funnel and Swire Shipping Company were large and there was an obvious need to set up their own maintenance facilities in the Far East. Since Hong Kong is an excellent deep-water port and an ideal location for ship repairs, Swire built Taikoo Dockyard on a piece of land next to the Taikoo Sugar Refinery in 1900. This massive ten-year plan was largely designed by Scotts' Shipbuilding (then the main shipbuilding company of the Pacific Ocean Line) and implemented under the leadership of James Henry Scott (1845-1912). After John Swire's death in 1898, Scott succeeded him as senior partner of the firm. As a descendant of the shipbuilding family, Scott has been working in Butterfield & Swire since its establishment thirty-two years ago and has been serving as John Swire's trusted lieutenant. Taikoo Dockyard built the first river ship "Shashi" for the Taikoo Shipping Company in 1910, and soon afterwards cooperated with Scotts' to build coastal trading ships for the company.
Taikoo Dockyard later became the largest shipyard and one of the most enterprising employers in Hong Kong, providing housing, hospitals and schools for its employees.
At the same time, the company continued to act as an agent for many well-known British companies. By the mid-1870s, the company entered the insurance industry, acting as an agent for the predecessors of Royal Insurance and Guardian Royal Exchanger. By 1900, Swire & Co., Ltd., under the Swire name, owned the largest fire insurance business in Shanghai and a sizable marine and accident insurance business portfolio. For the next ninety years, insurance has remained an important business area of ??Swire. In the early days, the company also represented a number of banks located in small coastal ports. In the 1880s, it once printed its own "banknotes", which were issued by "Taikoo Chong" and became a popular currency in the Shantou region of southern China.
In 1914, the original partnership agreement expired and the Swire Group became a limited company. Its first chairman was John 'Jack' (1861-1933), the eldest son of John Samuel Swire. Over the next two decades, considerable development occurred in shipping under the leadership of Jack and his brother (George) Warren Swire (1883-1949). Warren Swire took over as chairman of the company in 1927. By the late 1920s, foreign steamships were at their peak in China's inland waterway navigation, and the Great Recession of the 1930s had a slow impact on business here, so the fleet expanded, prompting the company to open new operations in Shanghai. Finally, in 1934, Swire & Co. opened the Orient Paint, Color & Varnish factory in Shanghai.
●Strengthen despite adversity
Taikoo Dockyard (circa 1925).
The Second World War destroyed Swire's hard-earned business empire. After the war, the company's properties across China were looted or destroyed, and even the interior of its London office was raided. The Swire Shipping Company's fleet was completely lost, with more than thirty ships missing. The Taikoo Dockyard and Taikoo Sugar Refinery in Hong Kong were also reduced to rubble by American artillery bombs.
At that time, the Yangtze River was closed to foreign ships and China continued to increase restrictions on coastal ports.
Taikoo Sugar's trucks.
This was a precursor to the company's gradual withdrawal from mainland China after the 1949 revolution. That was a turning point, but under the leadership of Jack Swire's son, John 'Jock' Kidston Swire (1893-1983), the company emerged from the crisis a stronger company. In 1950, Taikoo Sugar resumed production, and Taikoo Dockyard also built the first 6,000-ton ship for Taikoo Shipping Company.
Although Swire Shipping Company was based in Hong Kong, it had shifted its business focus southward to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, and its business network in the Pacific Rim was also expanding day by day, which provided a good foundation for the company in the future. The scheduled container ship business that has been in operation to this day has set the standard.
In 1952, in order to consolidate the foundation of the above-mentioned ship business, the British Swire Group became directly active in Australia again and invested in a small local land haulage company on an experimental basis. The success of this investment inspired the company to acquire the management equity of Frigmobile, a refrigerated cargo transportation company, in 1956. Subsequently, it also invested in a number of businesses such as refrigeration, refrigerated cargo transportation and special land haulage. These investments have now become Swire's main business in Australia.
During this period, Swire & Co. also began to establish its business in Hong Kong. First, it established the joint venture Swire & Maclaine in 1946, laying a solid foundation for the future development of various international franchise businesses. In 1948, the company moved its paint factory to a renovated and rented building in Taikoo Dockyard, Hong Kong. Since then, the company has continued to develop various types of specialized businesses. Today, these businesses have developed to a wide range, ranging from paint to aluminum cans. Everything from manufacturing to waste disposal services.
●The birth of an airline company
Jock Swire was determined to develop a new business direction for the company.
He believed that the air transport industry was the key to the future development of the post-war world, so he actively searched for aviation agency business for Swire & Co., and starting in 1947, some of the resources originally invested in rebuilding Taikoo Dockyard were used to develop the aircraft engineering of Kai Tak Airport. On the facilities. In 1950, Pacific Air Maintenance Services (PAMAS) merged with Jardine Air Maintenance Co. to form Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO) - today a world-renowned aircraft engineering company.
In 1948, Jock Swire persuaded the board of directors to further invest the company's remaining funds in another aviation business, purchasing 45% of Cathay Pacific Airways. At that time, Cathay Pacific was established only two years ago, and its founders were American Roy Farrell and Australian Sydney de Kantzow. They met because they flew a C47 aircraft together to carry supplies over the famous "Hump" route from India across the Himalayas to China during the war. The company's first aircraft was a DC3 (Dakota) US surplus military aircraft purchased by Roy, nicknamed Betsy. In just two years, they have expanded their fleet to include six DC3 aircraft and a Catalina seaplane.
However, in 1948, Roy and Syd ran into trouble. They need cash to revive their small business and face a serious threat from a local takeover, while Hong Kong may impose new landing rights restrictions on foreign airlines. At this time, Swire & Co. purchased a controlling interest in this small company. Since then, the development of Hong Kong's aviation industry has become a matter of great pride for Jock Swire.
In 1959, Cathay Pacific purchased its first turboprop aircraft – a Lockheed L188 Electra. The year marked a milestone for Cathay Pacific as the airline secured traffic rights both northbound to Japan and southbound to Sydney. At this time, Cathay Pacific became a full-fledged regional airline. After receiving its first Convair-880M aircraft in 1962, it entered the jet age.
●Open up new business areas
In 1965, Swire acquired a US-owned company – Hong Kong Bottlers Federal Inc. The company holds the exclusive rights to Coca-Cola's Hong Kong bottling business. At that time, Hong Kong Bottlers' annual output was 104 million bottles. In 1974, the company changed its name to Swire Bottlers. At that time, its annual output had reached 180 million bottles, and the company was ranked among the top 50 Coke bottlers in the world. Today, Swire is one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in Asia and the United States.
For Swire, the 1970s was an era of rapid change. In the early 1970s, the container shipping business developed rapidly, and Taikoo Dockyard's growth could no longer be accommodated by its location on Hong Kong Island. Therefore, the company decided to close the dockyard. In 1972, Taikoo Dockyard merged with Whampoa Dockyard, the oldest shipyard in Hong Kong, to form Hong Kong United Dockyard (United Dockyard), with its base in Tsing Yi. At that time, Swire had already begun to participate in the development of the Kwai Chung New International Container Terminal in Hong Kong. In the same year, it purchased the equity of Modern Container Terminals, an advanced container handling facility.
Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company, which was publicly listed on the Hong Kong stock market as early as 1959, was renamed Taikoo & Co. Ltd. (it was renamed Taikoo Co., Ltd. in the 1990s. Referred to as Swire Corporation). This is a ready-made holding company that holds all Swire's businesses in Hong Kong. The emergence of Swire & Company symbolized the birth of the modern Swire Group, and also marked the end of Butterfield's long-forgotten interests in the company. The word "Butterfield" in the English company name was also changed to "Swire" to highlight the group's corporate image.
In 1972, Taikoo Sugar also closed its refinery and browning plant and concentrated on sugar products and packaging business. In the mid-1970s, Swire Properties, a newly established company responsible for real estate development and management, began to build Taikoo Shing on large tracts of land vacated by the demolition of dockyards and sugar refineries in the eastern district of Hong Kong Island, bringing a new brand to the area. urban appearance.
Taikoo Shing is the first private housing estate in Hong Kong. Together with the Taikoo Shing Center retail/office complex (its basement parking lot is built on the site of the Taikoo Dry Dock), it is the first famous commercial project developed and managed by Swire Properties. Similar projects have also Including Pacific Place, Taikoo Place and Festival Walk, bringing a new interpretation to Hong Kong's commercial building development.
Cathay Pacific added its first Boeing 707 long-haul aircraft to its fleet in 1973. In the following ten years, the company developed rapidly, introducing a series of L1011 three-star wide-body aircraft, and In 1979, the first Boeing 747-200 Jumbo jet was purchased, rapidly strengthening the company. The following year, Cathay Pacific launched its first direct flight to London, becoming a truly international airline.
The revolutionary changes that occurred in the 1970s also included other new developments at Swire Pacific, the most noteworthy of which included the establishment in 1975 of the offshore oil support company Swire Offshore Development Company (then known as Swire Offshore Development Company). for Swire Northern Offshore), and in 1976 purchased the shares of Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited (Hactl). During this period, the parent company Swire Group also tried to invest in the offshore oil business. In 1979, it acquired Swire EPD, a supplier specializing in North Sea transportation equipment (later becoming a subsidiary of the Swire Group under the name of Swire Oilfield Services). business unit). The British Swire Group was also involved in Australia's land transportation and material handling business, acquiring Transwest Haulage in 1971, as well as buying shares in Papua New Guinea trading company Steamships Tradings and Glasgow tea trader James Finlay.
In the late 1970s, Swire Properties made its first investment in the United States. Swire Properties acquired some real estate rights in Miami. Swire Pacific also obtained Coca-Cola's Salt Lake City bottling franchise for the first time. In 1982, the Swire Group of the United Kingdom incorporated the refrigerated cargo warehousing company United States Cold Storage into its wholly-owned subsidiary. Soon it continued its efforts in Australia, and in 1988 it acquired the refrigeration service provider W. Woodmason (the Swire Group of the United Kingdom). associated company since 1970) as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Five years later, John Swire & Sons Pty acquired South Australian Cold Stores, further increasing the company's growing presence in the refrigerated services market.
Swire is a major commercial landowner in New South Wales and Southern Queensland.
Swire also began investing in the Australian livestock industry in the 1980s. In 1983, the British Swire Group and its associated company James Finlay jointly acquired half of Clyde Agriculture. Since then, Clyde (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British Swire Group) has expanded its business from cotton farming to include wool and beef, and its land holdings have increased twenty-fold, covering more than two dozen acres in New South Wales and Queensland. Millions of acres of land, including some of the most famous livestock industries in Australian history.
During this period, Hong Kong's Swire Corporation continued to develop its trading business, acquiring the marathon sporting goods chain store in 1983, and then purchasing the Reebok sports and leisure shoe franchise in 1987. In the same year, Swire began to get involved in environmental services and waste disposal businesses, which later became important business areas of Swire. Swire has formed partnerships with Browning Ferris Industries and SITA International and has become the main contractor of waste treatment projects for the Hong Kong government. It operates multiple landfills and provides waste transfer services, including the use of waste disposal facilities designed and operated by Swire's associate company HUD Marine. A number of small container ships transport waste to various outlying islands in Hong Kong.
Since the 1980s, Swire has also begun to reinvest in mainland China, including jointly investing with China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC Corporation) on many occasions. A major shareholder of Cathay Pacific Airways. Investments focus on beverage and manufacturing businesses, which have given Swire a solid foundation in China's modern industrial sector.
This trend continued in the 1990s, when HAECO and its business partners jointly established an aircraft overhaul company - Xiamen Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Co., Ltd. in Xiamen, southern China. By the end of 1994, Swire has signed joint venture agreements with Bo Nemen, Carlsberg and Tate & Lyle to operate paint production, brewing and sugar refining businesses in mainland China. So far, Swire's trading business in the mainland includes marketing Reebok and A range of designer sneakers such as Rockport.
In the 1990s, Swire made major breakthroughs in the aviation business, including the acquisition of Hong Kong's regional airline Dragonair (now a wholly-owned subsidiary) and the all-cargo airline Hua Civil Airlines In 1995, HAECO and Rolls-Royce jointly formed Hong Kong Aviation Engine Maintenance Services Company to take over HAECO's engine overhaul business.
In 1999, Swire Pacific acquired the exclusive agency rights for Volkswagen and Kia Motors in Taiwan, following its acquisition of the Taiwanese franchise rights for Volvo Motors 20 years ago, thereby expanding its automobile trading business. In 2002, Taikoo Motors Taiwan obtained the exclusive rights to Audi cars, increasing Swire's share of Taiwan's luxury car market.
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Swire's British parent company, Swire Pacific plc, added a number of major businesses. The company's acquisition of Kalari, a bulk carrier in Victoria, Australia, in 1994 further enhanced Swire's professional position in the Australian land transportation market. After the acquisition, Swire is determined to expand the company to provide specialized warehousing and distribution services throughout Australia. In 1996, the UK's Swire Group acquired a majority stake in Collins & Leahy, thereby further enhancing the capabilities already established in Papua New Guinea. Collins & Leahy is a major trading group in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and is a shareholder of Steamships Trading. In 2000, Collins & Leahy became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British Swire Group, and subsequently Swire's shareholding in the listed company Steamships Group increased to 72%. In 2005, Steamships acquired most of Collins & Leahy's businesses in Papua New Guinea, covering trading, manufacturing, hotels, real estate, shipping and transportation businesses, while Collins & Leahy retained real estate, aviation and Agricultural business.
Frigmobile is a beloved brand of Swire Cold Storage.
In November 2002, John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd. acquired most of the cold storage and distribution assets of P. Cleland Enterprises Ltd. This acquisition is Swire's largest single investment in Australia to date. It has greatly increased the group's strength in the Australian refrigeration market and secured a number of new major distribution contracts. It has enabled Swire to transform the Australian refrigeration industry into three major players in 2004. Major companies merged to form Swire Cold Storage to prepare.
In the UK, in 2000, when the famous tea manufacturer James Finlay plc celebrated its 250th anniversary, the British Swire Group Limited increased its stake in the company to 100 One hundredth. James Finlay plc began as a joint venture of Swire a long time ago. As for the oldest operating company of the British Swire Group, Swire Shipping Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary registered in the UK, acquired Bank Line and Indotrans in 2003.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Swire Pacific's investment in mainland China continued to grow. In 2002, Swire Properties, a major real estate developer in Hong Kong, signed a joint venture agreement to develop and manage a four-million-square-foot mixed-use development project in the prime location of Tianhe District in Guangzhou. It is expected to be completed in 2010. , will be named "Taikoo Hui-Guangzhou Press Culture Plaza". Swire Properties' stake in the project has increased to 97%.
At the end of 2004, Swire Shengda began construction of a new hazardous waste incineration plant in Shanghai. Its annual throughput will reach 60,000 tons. It will become the largest and first in China to comply with EU environmental standards. Design of hazardous waste treatment facilities.
In terms of aviation, HAECO has increased its stake in Xiamen Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Company to 54.55%, and Taikoo Xiamen Aircraft Engineering Company has built its sixth hangar. Further enhance processing capabilities and expand the scope of services provided at Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport. The company began a Boeing special freighter conversion plan in 2004, converting Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft into full freighters. Xiamen Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Company is one of the few facilities in the world licensed to carry out this type of engineering. HAECO and Xiamen Taikoo Aircraft Engineering Company signed a letter of intent in 2005 to jointly develop a hangar facility at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. Cathay Pacific Airways resumed daily passenger flights to and from Beijing in December 2003 after an absence of thirteen years, and started daily passenger flights to Shanghai in December 2006. . The company has also obtained the air rights to operate passenger flights to and from Xiamen.
Cathay Pacific celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2006. The key project of the year was the announcement of the equity restructuring agreement between Cathay Pacific, Swire Pacific, Air China and its parent company AVIC Industrial and CITIC Pacific. . Under the terms of this first-of-its-kind agreement, major regional passenger airline Dragonair becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, continuing to operate under its original brand under Cathay Pacific's management, while Cathay Pacific and Air China ultimately own each other of 17.5% equity. This partnership will have significant benefits for Cathay Pacific’s customers, shareholders and employees, and will bring more cooperation opportunities between Cathay Pacific and Air China. In the plan, the two parties will jointly establish air transport facilities in Shanghai, extend the code sharing arrangement, implement joint air route arrangements between Hong Kong and major mainland cities, and dispatch business representatives to each other. As of 2006, Cathay Pacific's wide-body aircraft fleet has exceeded 100. This breakthrough comes shortly after the company announced its largest aircraft ordering program in history, including an order for 18 aircraft from 2007 to 2020. Boeing 777-300ER aircraft delivered in 2008, and three Airbus A330-300 aircraft delivered in 2008.
Today, Swire employs more than 113,000 people worldwide. Although its business is diversified and spread all over the world, the British Swire Group is still a family business: the current honorary president and permanent president are both descendants of Swire founder John Swire, who started his business in Liverpool.