Biography

Guthrie’s was founded in 1823 in Singapore by a Scottish merchant, Alexander Guthrie. In the 19th century, Guthrie & Co. was a successful merchant house trading British goods (yarns and machinery) for commodities from Southeast Asia. Guthrie’s gradually evolved into a major agency for all kinds of merchandise, banks and shipping lines. By the early 20th century the firm became increasingly involved in the Malayan peninsula under the guidance of John Anderson, then the sole-surviving partner, taking on the agency for a number of rubber plantation companies with estates in Malaya. In 1924, Guthrie’s introduced palm oil to the Malay Peninsula. The company headquarters in Singapore were heavily bombed during the Second World War. Following considerable post-war expansion in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Rhodesia, Canada, Nigeria and through numerous subsidiary companies, the Guthrie Group formed a co-operative, Guthrie Estates Agency Ltd., to manage its constituent companies. In 1981 the group became a wholly Malaysian-owned company as a result of the Malaysian government’s ‘dawn raid’ on the London Stock Exchange. In 1989 the company was listed on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange as a public company. In 2007 Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad and its subsidiaries, including Highlands and Lowlands Berhad and Guthrie Ropel Berhad, merged with Sime Darby and Golden Hope Plantation to form Synergy Drive, later Sime Darby Berhad.