About Swire

FAST FACTS

(All results refer to financial year 2007. Other data effective end July 2008.)

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 36.5% 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 became a Swire group associate in 1976 and a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2000

Employees

Swire group + associates More than 125,000

2007 Performance

John Swire & Sons reported a profit attributable to shareholders of UK £299m for 2007 on turnover of UK£2,990m. The principal financial statistics of listed companies in the Swire group were:

Listed companies Turnover Profit attributable
to shareholders Shareholders'
funds

Swire Pacific HK$ 21,553m HK$ 10,283m HK$ 153,341m

Cathay Pacific Airways HK$ 75,358m HK$ 7,023m HK$ 50,549m

Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering HK$ 4,619m HK$ 1,073m HK$ 4,409m

Steamships Trading Company Kina 407m Kina 74m Kina 278m

2008 marks:

140 years since John Swire & Sons established its Head Office in London
135 years since the first China Navigation vessel went into service on the Yangtze River
60 years since Swire acquired a majority shareholding in Cathay Pacific Airways
30 years since Swire Pacific Offshore became a wholly-owned subsidiary
20 years since Swire acquired the Marathon Sports chain.

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."