|
Aitken Spence PLC (Scottish pronunciation:, (シンハラ語:එයිට්කින් ස්පෙන්ස්), (タミル語:எய்ட்கின் ஸ்பென்ஸ்)) is a Sri Lankan blue chip conglomerate with operations in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific. Listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange since 1983, it has major interests in hotels, travel, maritime services and logistics.〔 The group also has a significant presence in printing, plantations, power generation, financial services, IT, BPO/KPO sector, elevator agency services, garments, and property development.〔 Aitken Spence has been recognised by Forbes as one of the most successful publicly traded companies with annual sales under US$1 billion outside of the United States, for three consecutive years. In 2012, Aitken Spence was adjudged the top winner of the Best Corporate Citizen Award 2012 presented by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. The Company is one of the first signatories to the UN’s Global Compact in Sri Lanka.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://www.unglobalcompact.org/participants/search?commit=t&country%5B%5D=111&page=1&per_page=250 )〕 ==History== Whilst the roots of Aitken Spence can be dated back to Wilson & Archer Partnership of the 1830s in the early British Colonial Ceylon, the company began to take its current form after the signing of a formal partnership agreement between Thomas Clark and Patrick Gordon Spence—Scottish merchants and shipping agents in Galle—on 1 September 1868, wherein Clark Spence & Co. was established. Clark Spence & Co.'s trading segment at this stage included exports of natural vein graphite (plumbago), gems, hides, Sappan wood, ebony, coffee, coconut oil, coir yarn, bristle fibre, arrack, and citronella oil to United Kingdom, Continental Europe, United States of America and Australia; and imports of Burmese rice and coal for steamer ship bunkers. On 5 April 1871, Patrick Gordon Spence, secured Clark Spence & Co. as the sole agent of Lloyd’s of London in Ceylon.〔 In order to service the Agency for the Lloyd's of London for the Port of Colombo, Clark Spence & Co. partnered with Britton, Aitken & Co. to open a branch office in Colombo. On New Year’s Day, 1873, E.C. Britton opted out of the Britton, Aitken & Co. partnership, resulting in Patrick Gordon Spence, Edward Aitken and S.R. Aitken coming together to form Aitken Spence & Co. to manage the operations in Colombo, whilst Clark Spence & Co. continued in partnership to operate in Galle.〔〔 In 1876, Aitken Spence & Co. obtained the Lloyds agency from Clark Spence & Co.〔 Aitken Spence had also obtained the local agency of Morgan Crucible Company for trading in plumbago.〔 As Colombo became the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, Aitken Spence & Co became more prominent and subsequently its partner company, Clark Spence & Co. originally based in Galle, became a subsidiary of Aitken Spence & Co. By the 1880s, Aitken Spence had also secured the shipping agencies Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd and Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland for Ceylon. The company moved into plantations sector as an agency house in the early 1900s and with the onset of the Great Depression, began to withdraw from its trading business. In 1918, Aitken Spence purchased the Freudenberg Building in Colombo, and made it its company headquarters having renamed the building as Lloyds Building. As a pioneer in port operations, Aitken Spence was entrusted in coordinating the Operations of Colombo Port during the Second World War.〔〔 Aitken Spence became a Private Company in 1952.〔 In its centenary year, 1968, it appointed its first Sri Lankan Chairman,〔 E.L. Van Langenberg.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Our Heritage )〕 By 1971, as Sri Lanka was preparing to end British dominion and declare as republic, the company became a wholly Sri Lankan owned entity. In 1972, it began to offer shares to its executives, thereby broad basing its ownership. The Company eventually moved on from this model and in 1983 offered its shares to the general public on the Colombo Stock Exchange with an issued share capital of Rs. 51 million.〔 During the early 1960s and early 1970s, Insurance and Plantations sectors—which were core business segments of Aitken Spence, where the Company had been well established at the time—were nationalized. However, the Group's marine insurance segment (including its Lloyd Agency) continued to operate as it did not fall within the purview of nationalization. Despite the setbacks from nationalization, in realizing the then government's thrust to boost tourism, Aitken Spence launched its tourism segment in 1972 with investments in its first hotel (Neptune Hotel in Beruwala, Sri Lanka opened in 1974).〔 The company then entered into Aviation in 1974 (as general sales agent for Singapore Airlines in Sri Lanka).〔 In consolidating its travel agency business that had begun with the launch of Aitken Spence Hotels in 1974, Aitken Spence set up Aitken Spence Travels in 1977 as inbound and outbound tour operators in Sri Lanka and as agents for Eurail and Britrail.〔 Tourism is now a core business segment of Aitken Spence. With Sri Lanka adopting open market economic policies focused on export led growth in 1977, Aitken Spence forayed further into new business segments : Container and allied services in 1979; Garments and apparels in 1979;〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Garment Manufacture )〕 International courier service agency with TNT in 1981;〔 and Elevators in 1989 as agent of OTIS.〔 With insurance sector being deregulated in the 1980s, the Group played a pivotal role in the resurgence of private sector insuarance as a proponent of the National Insurance Corporation and Union Assuarance Ltd, stakes in which Aitken Spence subsequently divested. Aitken Spence reentered Plantations sector, when the sector was reprivatized in 1992, through its stake in Udapussellawa Plantation PLC that was later divested. In response to the Power Crisis in Sri Lanka in 1996, Aitken Spence began to explore investment opportunities in power generation sector, with first two power plants coming online in 2002. The Group also maintained container vessel operations, with acquisition of five ships in a joint venture with Ceyline Group in 2003, which it later divested in 2008. In 2010, in continuing its partnership with Ceyline Group, Aitken Spence invested in CINEC, Sri Lanka's largest private higher education institution. Aitken Spence was the first Sri Lankan resort operator to embark on overseas resort operations having acquired Bathala Island Resort of Maldives in 1993.〔 In 1996, Aitken Spence entered Bangladesh through Aitken Spence Cargo with its shipping services.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title= About Ace Cargo )〕 A decade later, in 2006, Aitken Spence entered the Indian hospitality sector, having secured management contracts for five hotel properties in India.〔 On the same year, the company broke new ground by becoming the first Sri Lankan company to venture into port efficiency management outside of Sri Lanka, when it undertook to improve efficiency of ports in the African continent.〔 The company increased its global presence even further by obtaining the management of four hotel properties in Oman in 2007.〔 In 2013, Aitken Spence announced its proposed venture into Fiji to manage the Ports of Suva and Lautoka in a public private partnership with the Government of Fiji.〔 The Group has expressed interest to further diversify its investments in Fiji, venturing into hospitality, power and printing sectors. Currently, the company has operations in seven countries (Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Oman, Fiji), spanning two continents〔(【引用サイトリンク】pages = 28–29 )〕 with 13,000 employees. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aitken Spence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|