Swire

Swire Group
太古集團

Type	Private
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	1816; 201 years ago (1816)
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Key people	Barnaby Swire, Chairman Merlin Swire, Chief Executive John Slosar (Chairman, Swire Pacific)
Products	Aerospace, property, shipping, transport & agriculture, Oil, Energy and investments.
Net income	7.65 billion USD (approx 2014)
Number of employees	129,793
Subsidiaries	Swire Pacific, Swire Properties, Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon, HAECO, Steamships Trading Company, Swire Coca-Cola
Website	www.swire.com

The Swire Group is a diversified conglomerate, headquartered in Swire House in the City of Westminster, London. It controls a large range of wholly owned businesses, including deep-sea shipping, cold storage, road transport, and agricultural activities, along with energy and oil businesses and investments. Swire controls a large property empire in Asia - mainly Hong Kong. The current chairman is Barnaby Swire. Taikoo (太古) is the Chinese name of Swire. It serves as the brand name for businesses such as Taikoo Cube Sugar and Taikoo Shing.

The Swire Group's privately owned parent company is John Swire & Sons Limited. The Swire Group, started by John Swire (1793–1847) in 1816, had its beginnings 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 overseas and it was John Samuel Swire in particular whose entrepreneurial instincts would be at the root of the firm's successes in years to come. In 1861, John Swire & Sons Limited began to trade with China through agents Augustine Heard & Co. In 1866, in partnership with R.S. Butterfield, Butterfield & Swire was established in Shanghai. Four years later, a 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 of its China offices. In 1974, Butterfield & Swire in Hong Kong was renamed John Swire & Sons (H.K.) Ltd..

The Swire Group's core businesses in Hong Kong are held by the publicly quoted Swire Pacific Limited. The Group's core businesses are grouped into: property, aviation, beverages, marine services, and trading and industrial. Swire Pacific Limited is listed on the as Swire Pacific Limited : 0019 (A-shares) : 0087 (B-shares). In 1948, Swire Pacific acquired Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's largest airline, and remains as the largest shareholder with 45% shareholding.