John Swire & Sons Limited is the privately held parent company of the Swire Group. The Swire Group, founded by John Swire (1787-1847) in 1816, began as a modest Liverpool import-export company based mainly on the textile trade. John Swire's sons, John Samuel (1825-1898) and William Hudson (1830-1884), took the firm abroad, and it was John Samuel Swire, in particular, whose entrepreneurial instincts would underpin the firm's success in the years to come. In 1861, John Swire & Sons Limited began trading with China through agents Augustine Heard & Co. In 1866, in partnership with R.S. Butterfield, the company Butterfield & Swire was founded in Shanghai. Four years later, the Hong Kong branch of Butterfield & Swire was also opened. Four years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Butterfield & Swire closed all its offices in China. In 1974, Butterfield & Swire in Hong Kong was renamed John Swire & Sons (H.K.) Ltd. At the moment, John Swire & Sons Limited controls the following companies: Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (CPA), Swire Properties, Swire Pacific Offshore Holdings Limited (SPO), John Swire and Sons (Green Investments) Ltd, The China Navigation Company, Swire Energy Services. |
