About Swire

John Swire & Sons Limited (JS&S)

John Swire & Sons Limited is the UK-headquartered parent company of the Swire group, dating its history to 1816 and the establishment by John Swire (1793-1847) of a small import-export business in Liverpool. His son, John Samuel Swire (1825-1898) took the firm overseas, opening offices in Melbourne in 1855, London in 1864, Shanghai in 1866, Yokohama in 1867, Hong Kong in 1870 and New York in 1874.

Swire came to China to trade in woollen and cotton piece goods, to export tea and silks and to become agent and Far Eastern manager for the newly established Liverpool shipping company, Blue Funnel Line. The Greater China region quickly became the centre of Swire’s operational activities as the firm diversified into shipping, insurance, sugar refining and dockyards; after World War II adding airlines and a range of aviation-related services, property development and management, soft drink production, logistics services and farming to its portfolio.

John Swire & Sons acts as overall coordinator of Swire group policy and also provides management and advisory services throughout the group and its subsidiaries, which today employ some 127,800 people worldwide.

In addition to its 43.13% shareholding in publicly quoted Swire Pacific Limited, John Swire & Sons Limited controls a range of wholly owned businesses worldwide. These include all of the group's interests in Australia, where Swire is the leading cold storage provider, and a major national provider of transportation and materials handling services.

In Papua New Guinea, its interests come under the mantle of historic trading group, Steamships Trading Company; John Swire & Sons holds the majority shareholding in this public company, which is listed on the Sydney stock exchange. John Swire & Sons also has major cold storage interests in the USA, through United States Cold Storage, and in agricultural businesses in East Africa and Sri Lanka, through James Finlay Limited. The company controls the Swire group's deep-sea shipping interests worldwide, which are held through The China Navigation Company – one of the UK's oldest shipping companies.

John Swire & Sons has offices in London, Hong Kong, Sydney, Beijing, and in Papua New Guinea, the USA, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Swire Pacific Limited

Swire Pacific is one of Hong Kong's leading publicly quoted companies. The company was formed in 1974 from an existing listed Swire entity, as the holding company for the group's principal businesses in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere. Swire Pacific's interests are grouped under five divisions: Property, Aviation, Beverages, Marine Services and Trading & Industrial, and the company is a major shareholder in three other wellknown Hong Kong public companies, Swire Properties, Cathay Pacific Airways and Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO), the latter two of which also act as holding companies for Swire's other Aviation Division businesses.

Swire Pacific's Property Division comes under Swire Properties Limited, Hong Kong's second largest landlord and a large operator of retail space. The company also has significant investment properties under development in Mainland China, Hong Kong and the USA, and hotel interests in Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Florida and the UK. In addition to airlines and aircraft maintenance and engineering, Swire Pacific's Aviation Division includes airline catering, air cargo terminal operation and ground services. Its Beverages Division comprises its strategic partnership with The Coca-Cola Company; Swire Pacific operates one of the largest Coca-Cola franchises in the world, and sold 904 million unit cases of product in 2009. Its Marine Services Division includes Singapore-based Swire Pacific Offshore, one of the leading international providers of offshore marine services to the oil and gas industry, and a 50% share in Hong Kong's leading ship repair and towage and salvage operator, HUD Group. Swire Pacific's Trading & Industrial activities include the distribution of motor vehicles in Taiwan and of branded sports and lifestyle shoes and apparel in Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China. Its industrial interests range from the manufacture of aluminium cans and paint, to sugar packaging for historic brand Taikoo Sugar, established by Swire in the 1880s.