Boustead & Co

Boustead & Co is an asset management and corporate finance company created by Edward Boustead in 1828 that still exists today.

In 1828, Edward Boustead arrived in Singapore on board the British ship Hindustan. In the same year, he established a trading company, Boustead & Co. Boustead & Co specialised in import and export, offering goods such as banca tin, spices, saps, rattan, medicinal herbs, silk and tea widely available in South East Asia in exchange for Western products like cloth, oil and machinery.

Boustead & Co commissioned Irish civil architect, George Drumgoole Coleman to design the company's headquarters alongside the Singapore River. The warehouse was known as "the house of seven and twenty pillars", located around the corner from High Street.

In 1834, Boustead & Co partnered with German-born merchant, Gustav Christian Schwabe in the Singapore company. Schwabe and his cousin established Sykes Schwabe & Co in Liverpool. The Liverpool partner would export products like textiles, biscuits, brandies and steel to the East, while the Singapore partner would trade with Eastern produce such as coffee and spices. The freedom of port made Singapore an ideal market for trading among imported manufacturers.

Import of Western commodities such as textiles and machinery had to be balanced with exports of Eastern produce such as copra, coconut, pepper and tapioca. Boustead & Co had a "Balance of Trade", where demand for goods from the East had to be balanced with demand for goods from the West.

Singapore merchant, Tan Kim Seng, was a middleman in Boustead's trading activities. He was also a good friend of Boustead. Tan amassed small shipments of produce from local traders for Boustead, who would then ship the produce to the West.

Boustead & Co was the first agent for Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Singapore, offering banking facilities to businesses. Brokers and sellers could draw a specific percentage of advances against the value of their goods stored in the Boustead warehouse. Such financing was called "trust receipts", where the merchant would hold the goods in trust for the banks. As trade credit and finance became increasingly important to banks, merchants, manufacturers and traders, Boustead & Co strengthened its position against competing houses—including the reputable trading houses of Jardine Matheson, Guthrie & Co Ltd, Harrisons and Crosfield Ltd, Maclaine, Watson and Co Ltd, Sime Darby & Co Ltd, and others—by establishing a wide trading network and became one of the leading British merchant banking houses, greatly contributing to Singapore's trading activities and economy.

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