Jardine Matheson

Jardine Matheson is a trading company that was founded in China in 1832. Its holdings are mostly in Asia. It has been run by the Keswick family of Scotland since its founding.

The company accumulated wealth in the 19th century in part through the Chinese opium trade.

In 1970, Robert Fleming and Co entered into an investment banking joint venture with Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson, forming Jardine Fleming. The tie-up was prompted by the long-standing family links between the Flemings and the Keswick family of Scotland, who have run Jardine Matheson since its founding.

Prime Minister David Cameron worked briefly at JM's Hong Kong office in the 1980s, his father, Ian Cameron, was a friend and stockbroker to the family and Ben Keswick, JM's MD, was among a number of British business delegates on the PM's plane for a trip to Asia in 2012.

Tory funding and rainforest controversy

In April 2010 The Times reported that the Conservative Party had accepted donations from members of the Keswick family, which has been accused of profiting from the destruction of one of the few remaining rainforest habitats of the orang-utan. This is in spite of the fact that the party has a policy of protecting orang-utans. The article said:

Jardine, which has an office in the City of London and head office in Hong Kong, has a complex network of subsidiaries. These include Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), one of Indonesia’s largest palm oil companies, which is expanding its plantations in the Tripa region of Aceh in Sumatra, whose forests in the 1990s were home to 1,500 orang-utans, of which just 280 are left. AAL is cashing in on rising demand for palm oil, which is used in products such as detergents, biscuits and diesel.

The Times reported that Sir Henry Keswick, chair of Jardine Matheson, had donated £213,000 to the Conservatives in the past eight years. The same article reported that Simon Keswick, a director, had donated £99,500 to the Conservative Party since 2002.

Further rainforest controversy

In May 2015 JM were accused of threatening the survival of endangered species by 'cutting down swathes of "the world's last great rainforest"'. A team of researches, working for US-based campaign group Forest Heroes and others, used satellite images, drones and reports from the field. They claim, palm oil firm Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), a subsidiary of JM, has felled more than 14,000 hectares of forest since 2006 in Indonesia, despite most other companies in the industry signing up to strict 'no deforestation' policies. The researchers also claim that AAL have produced anual carbon emissions equivalent to those emitted by 830,000 cars by draining peatland to make way for palm oil plantations.

AAL are also said to have has a number of disputes over land with indigenous people in Indonesia, including one alleged incident in which staff from the AAL plantation are said to have attacked and burned a community camp to set up on its land.

The researchers hope to hold demonstrations outside one of JM's most high-profile businesses, the Mandarin Oriental luxury hotel chain.

People

• Sir Henry Keswick - chair. Married to Tessa Keswick, president of the Devizes Tory association in Wiltshire.
• Simon Keswick, a director.