Each New Year’s Eve, an employee of Jardine Matheson, the industrial conglomerate, fires a naval gun by Causeway Bay in Hong Kong to signal the year’s passing. When the midnight gun sounds this year, it will mark the end of an era — that of Henry Keswick as Jardines’ chairman.
Many British institutions have faded or died but Jardines has flourished, with a market value of $49bn, 444,000 employees and business across Asia. Much of its success is due to 80-year-old Sir Henry, who led Jardines through scrapes and near failure to today’s rude health. Merchant families such as the Barings and the Flemings are history; the Keswicks, linked to the Jardines by marriage, endure.
Sir Henry, a tall, round-faced Old Etonian with a courtly air and a mischievous sense of humour, has quietly become one of the most successful British business leaders of the past three decades. You would hardly know it because he has mastered invisibility — he rarely speaks publicly and Jardines is one of the most private and family-dominated of listed companies.