1
Background
1.
William Courtauld, who has been with Jardines since 1976,
is the Executive director of Jardine Pacific Ltd, with specific
responsibility for the company's financial services and property division, which has operations in Hong Kong, mainland China and
throughout the Asia Pacific Region. He is also a member of the
General Committee of the British Chamber of Commerce in
Hong Kong.
2. Jardine Pacific is the trading and services arm of the
Jardine Matheson Group. The headquarters is in Hong Kong. employs some 64,000 people, including those in associated companies, in some 20 countries around the world, including
China.
It
3.
The Jardine Group has just announced record pre tax
profits, up 12% to US$657 million (net profits up 17% to US$
316.8 m) for the year to end December. However Henry Keswick
has warned that with the renewed political uncertainty in Hong Kong and recovery in some western economies and Japan likely to
be slow, it may not be easy to match the growth of recent years
in 1993. Pre tax profits from Jardine Pacific increased by $31
million to $228.7 million helped by a record year at Jardine
International Motors.
They
4. Following the Chinese attack on Jardines before Christmas, Jardines have been keeping their heads down politically.
were therefore alarmed by press reports over the weekend
indicating that a directive had gone out to all Chinese state
enterprises telling them not to deal with Jardines. We
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