TNAG-2126-FCO40-3036-Investment-in-Hong-Kong-1990 — Page 171

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Register

JOHN SWIRE & SONS (H.K.) LTD

Fiscrived in Registry 23 JAN 1990

Swire House, 9 Connaught Road, C., Hong Koffger

INDEX

PRIORITY

PA

Registry ACTION

NONE

The Swire Group Cables: SWIRE

Telex: 73206 SWIRE HX Fax No. 852-8459556 Telephone: 5-8408888

G. P. O. Box No. 1 Hong Kong

23rd January, 1990

Peter Heap, Esq.,

Senior British Trade Commissioner,

British Trade Commission,

9th Floor,

Bank of America Tower,

Hong Kong.

Dear Peter,

BRITISH INVESTMENT IN HONG KONG

I have been concerned for some time that despite all our efforts, the message that British investment in Hong Kong is substantial is not getting through, in particular to MPs many of whom continue to believe that the British have withdrawn commercially from the territory. This affects their thinking, inter alia on the passport issue.

I have accordingly mounted an up-to-date internal Swire exercise to establish the value of the underlying British (UK) content of the major Hong Kong companies in which Swires are involved (JS&S (HK), Swire Pacific, Cathay Pacific, HAECO, Modern Terminals) without double counting.

The answer is that the definitive identifiable UK holding in these companies has a current market value of £700M. On top of this, it is certain that a proportion of shares held in the names of nominees are beneficially owned in the UK. It has to be an informed guess, but we believe this to represent an additional £500M to £700M.

In short, we are reasonably confident that the genuine UK content in the five major Swire-chaired companies mentioned above is, without double counting, a conservative £1.2Bn. It is quite likely to be as high as £1.4Bn.

I hope this is helpful. I leave for Australia on Thursday, but will be back here early February.

Best wishes for the New Year.

Yours sincerely,

c.c. D.A. Gledhill, Esq. ACS/hc

Adua

(Sir Adrian Swire)