Swire

Swire Group is a highly diversified global corporation, with businesses encompassing property, beverages and food chain, aviation, marine, as well as trading and industrial activities. Its core businesses are mainly focused on Asia, with its key operations in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. Within Asia, Swire's activities come under the group's publicly quoted arm, Swire Pacific Limited, which is the largest shareholder in two Hong Kong listed companies: Swire Properties and Cathay Pacific. The Group's parent company, John Swire & Sons Limited, holds controlling stakes in a range of businesses trading in the UK, USA, Australia, Papua New Guinea, East and West Africa, and across Southeast Asia. Taikoo (太古) is the Chinese name of Swire. It serves as the brand name for businesses such as Taikoo Sugar and Taikoo Shing.

History
The Swire Group's privately owned parent company is London-based John Swire & Sons Limited. The Swire Group, started by John Swire (1787–1847) in 1816, had its beginnings as a modest Liverpool import-export company based mainly on the textile trade.

Businesses
The Swire Group's core businesses in Hong Kong are held by Swire Pacific Limited, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Group's businesses are arranged into groups: property, aviation, beverages and food chain, marine services, and trading and industrial.

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (CPA)
In 1948, Swire Pacific acquired Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's largest airline, and remains as the largest shareholder, with 42%.

Swire Properties
Incorporated in 1972, Swire Properties develops and manages commercial, retail and residential properties, with a particular focus on mixed-use development in prime locations at major mass transportation intersections. The company's investment portfolio in Hong Kong totals approximately 17.8 million sq ft (approximately 1.66 million square metres ) of gross floor area, with Pacific Place, Island East as its core holdings. In addition to Hong Kong, the company has a presence in China, the United States and the United Kingdom. In China, Swire Properties has a portfolio amounting to approximately 12.9 million sq ft (approximately 1.20 million square metres ), the majority of which is under construction. The five projects consist of mixed-use developments in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, with Sanlitun Village and The Opposite House hotel in Beijing being the best-known among them. In 2008, the Company formed Swire Hotels to create and manage urban hotels in Hong Kong, China and the United Kingdom.

Swire Pacific Offshore Holdings Limited (SPO)
Swire Pacific Offshore Holdings Limited (SPO), was a wholly owned subsidiary of Swire Pacific, supplying chartered vessels that supported the offshore oil and gas industry worldwide. It owned a fleet of 69 offshore vessels.

Tidewater entered into a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Swire Pacific Offshore (SPO), a subsidiary of Swire Pacific Limited, for approximately $190 million in early March 2022. Tidewater announced the completion of its acquisition of Swire Pacific Offshore on Friday 22 April 2022.

The China Navigation Company
The China Navigation Company is the deep-sea shipping arm of John Swire & Sons Ltd.

John Swire and Sons (Green Investments) Ltd
John Swire & Sons (Green Investments) Ltd has acquired Scottish biodiesel producer Argent Energy. Argent Energy pioneered large scale commercial biodiesel production in the UK when it started production at its plant near Motherwell in Scotland in 2005. The firm makes its road fuel by recycling wastes and residues from other industries – specifically used cooking oil which is a waste from the food industry, tallow from the meat industry, and sewer grease.

Swire Coca-Cola
Swire is an anchor bottler in the Coca-Cola System. It is the bottler of Coca-Cola and its related products in 11 provinces and the Shanghai Municipality in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and 13 states in the western USA. This territory represents a population of 780 million people.

Chairmen of Swire Pacific
Swire Pacific was formed in 1974 (from Taikoo Swire) to become the main holding company for Swire's Hong Kong-based assets.


 * 1) John Bremridge, 1974–1980
 * 2) Duncan Bluck, 1981–1984
 * 3) Michael Miles, 1984–1988
 * 4) David Gledhill, 1988–1992
 * 5) Peter Sutch, 1992–1999
 * 6) James Hughes-Hallett, 1999–2004
 * 7) David Turnbull, 2005–2006
 * 8) Christopher Pratt, 2006–2014
 * 9) John Slosar, 2014–2018 (First non-British citizen as chairman)
 * 10) Merlin Swire, 2018–2021 (First Swire family chairman)
 * 11) Guy Bradley, 2021–