Jardine Matheson, the 194-year-old group that made its name trading in emerging markets, has said it will focus on building its exposure in developed Asia-Pacific countries to rebalance a portfolio heavily skewed towards south-east Asia.
“There’s no question as you look at our asset base today . . . we are overweight Indonesia in our portfolio,” Lincoln Pan, Jardine’s chief executive, said in an interview with the FT. “How do you balance that off? You balance that with a country [with] . . . an OECD exposure risk, in a place like Australia.”
Pan was speaking ahead of Jardines’ investor day on Tuesday, where the company laid out its vision until 2030. Founded as an opium trader in 1832 in southern China, Jardines has recently embarked on a shift away from being an owner-operator of Asian businesses spanning engineering, construction, retail and hotels to being an investment manager.