About Swire

FAST FACTS

(All results refer to financial year 2006. Other data effective end June 2007.)

Swire group

Swire encompasses a wide range of commercial activities and its interests span five continents. Swire's principal areas of operation are in the Asia Pacific region, and centre on the Greater China area. The Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong is home to publicly quoted Swire Pacific, whose core businesses are grouped under five operating divisions: property, aviation, beverages, marine services, and trading & industrial.

John Swire & Sons, Swire's parent company, is headquartered in London, and in addition to its 34% shareholding in Swire Pacific, controls a range of wholly-owned businesses, including deep-sea shipping, cold storage, road transport, and agricultural activities, with main areas of operation in Australia, Papua New Guinea, East Africa, Sri Lanka, the USA and UK. John Swire & Sons acts as overall coordinator of Swire policy and, under various agreements, management and advisory services are provided within the group.

Year Established

John Swire & Sons Liverpool 1816, Melbourne 1855, London 1864, Shanghai 1866,
Yokohama 1867, Hong Kong 1870, New York 1874

Cathay Pacific Hong Kong 1946

Swire Pacific Hong Kong 1974, from an existing public company, The Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Company of Hong Kong Limited, first quoted on the Hong Kong stock market in 1959

James Finlay Glasgow 1750. James Finlay plc became a Swire associate in 1976 and a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2000

Employees

Swire group + associates More than 119,000

2006 Performance

John Swire & Sons reported a profit attributable to shareholders of UK£262m for 2006 on turnover of UK£2,765m. The principal financial statistics of listed companies in the Swire group were:

Listed companies Turnover Profit attributable
to shareholders Shareholders'
funds

Swire Pacific HK$ 19,111m HK$ 8,716m HK$ 128,563m

Cathay Pacific Airways HK$ 60,783m HK$ 4,088m HK$ 45,554m

Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering HK$ 3,844m HK$ 847m HK$ 3,665m

Steamships Trading Company Kina 336m Kina 47m Kina 243m

2007 marks:

60 years since Swire formed Pacific Air Maintenance & Supply - forerunner of HAECO
40 years since Swire formed Air Caterers Limited - forerunner of Cathay Pacific Catering Services

Swire's Chinese name is Taikoo (太古) meaning "Great and Ancient" and our motto is "Esse Quam Videri" meaning "To be, rather than to seem to be."