U.K. automotive company
Inchcape plc
is a British
multinational
automotive
distribution, retail and services company headquartered in
London
. An outgrowth of
Calcutta
-based Mackinnon Mackenzie Company, Inchcape has operations in 32 countries across Asia, Australia, Europe, Africa and South America.
[5]
Inchcape is listed on the
London Stock Exchange
and is a constituent of the
FTSE 250 Index
.
History
[
edit
]
1847?1950
[
edit
]
In 1847,
William Mackinnon
and
Robert Mackenzie
formed the Mackinnon Mackenzie Company (MMC), a general merchanting partnership based in
Calcutta
.
[6]
In 1856 Mackinnon formed the
Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company
to carry post to the region:
[6]
the Company appointed MMC as their agents, secured contracts to transport British troops from
Ceylon
to
India
during the
Indian Mutiny
of 1857 and in 1862 floated on the
London Stock Exchange
under the name
British India Steam Navigation Company
.
[6]
In 1874,
James Lyle MacKay
joined Mackinnon and Mackenzie in Calcutta and by 1914 was the sole surviving senior partner in MMC. Largely responsible for solving
India
's currency problems and for the adoption of the
Gold Standard
, he was given a
peerage
by
King George V
for his services to industry in 1911.
[6]
He chose the title "
Baron Inchcape
, of
Strathnaver
in the
County of Sutherland
", after the
Inchcape Rock
, which lies off
Strathnaver
and
Arbroath
(his birthplace) in
Scotland
, a prominent landmark which he had known well from sailing on voyages with his
shipmaster
father.
[6]
Lord Inchcape was later created The 1st
Viscount Inchcape
in 1924, and was further advanced in the
Peerage of the United Kingdom
as The 1st
Earl of Inchcape
in 1929.
[7]
1950?1990
[
edit
]
An Inchcape dealership in
Exeter
By the 1950s, the Inchcape family had diverse interests around the world. This period brought new legislation and tax laws and, under
The 3rd Earl of Inchcape
, the family's many interests, including MMC, were consolidated into
Inchcape and Company
.
[6]
In 1958
Inchcape and Company
became a public company and offered twenty five per cent of its equity for sale on the
London Stock Exchange
.
[6]
Inchcape's growth was largely due to a series of mergers and acquisitions, including the merger with
Borneo Company Limited
in 1967, which almost doubled the company's size by adding Hong Kong,
Malaysia
, Canada, Singapore,
Brunei
and
Thailand
to the operation.
[6]
In 1971,
Millars Timber & Trading Company
in
Western Australia
was purchased.
[8]
In 1972,
Dodwell & Company
was acquired, adding extensive shipping, motors and business machine trading in the Far East.
[6]
Dodwell & Company gave Inchcape further interests in this region, which it maintained as quasi-independent companies, rather than forming one large entity. Dodwell & Company was founded in Shanghai in 1858, and by the 1970s had established extensive businesses in shipping, motors, and business-machine trading in Hong Kong, Japan and many other Far Eastern ports and cities.
[6]
Mann Egerton
, acquired in 1973, laid the foundations for Inchcape's motor-distribution business. Founded at the end of the 19th century in
Norwich
by an electrical engineer and an early motoring pioneer, Mann Egerton sold cars manufactured by
De Dion-Bouton
,
Renault
and
Daimler
at the turn of the century initially from branches in the eastern counties of England. By the 1970s, Mann Egerton distributed
British Leyland
cars, as well as an extensive range of luxury cars.
[6]
Inchcape bought
Joska Bourgeois
's Japanese car distribution business, the International Motor Company, for £14.6 million in 1979.
[9]
Reincorporated as Inchcape plc in 1981, the company acquired during the 1980s several petrol, textile, electronic and mineral testing and inspection companies and formed a specific testing business stream. This business stream kept on growing due to the acquisition of the Caleb Brett group, SEMKO and various others, such as ETL Testing Laboratories.
[10]
By 1989, the motors division of Inchcape was contributing two-thirds of group turnover and 53.6 percent of group profits, the greater part contributed by
Toyota
.
[6]
1990?2000
[
edit
]
An Inchcape dealership in
Guildford
Under the chairmanship of George Turnbull, Inchcape had reinforced in the 1980s its concentration on its core businesses. The key businesses at that time were organised into three main areas: services, marketing and distribution, and resources. The service businesses consisted of buying, insurance, inspection and testing, and shipping. The marketing and distribution businesses covered business machines, consumer and industrial services, and motors. The resource-based businesses covered tea and timber.
[6]
A combination of factors plunged Inchcape into its two most difficult years ever, 1994 and 1995. Difficult economic conditions in some of the company's key markets ? particularly in Western Europe and Hong Kong ? dampened consumer spending, while the strength of the yen made Inchcape's Japanese products, notably the Toyota motor vehicles, less attractive than those of competitors based outside Japan. In certain areas such as marketing, Inchcape had also become a more bureaucratic organisation than in the past, and had lost touch with some of the local markets it served.
[6]
A new management team determined that Inchcape had to focus on its core international distribution businesses to turn things around and began making significant business divestments, including selling the Bain Hogg insurance brokerage subsidiary (formed by the merger of Inchcape's brokerage operation with Bain Clarkson, and the Hogg Group in 1994 and ranked the eleventh largest broker in the world in 1995
[11]
) to the
Aon Corporation
in the United States for £160 million in 1996. In the same year the testing service division was part of a management buy-out by
Charterhouse Development Capital
and renamed
Intertek Testing Services
.
[12]
In March 1998 spurred by the Asian economic crisis, Inchcape announced, that it would focus exclusively on worldwide car distribution, the most successful part of the group. One of the first major sectors to go was the company's Russian soft-drink bottling business. Inchcape sold that part of their operations to
The Coca-Cola Company
for US$87 million. The sales of bottling businesses in South America, marketing services in Asia and the Middle East, the global shipping business ?
Inchcape Shipping Services
? and the Asia-Pacific Office Automation business were some of the wide range of divestments that quickly followed. In July 1999 the new motors-only Inchcape was officially born.
[6]
2000?present
[
edit
]
In June 2000 Peter Johnson became chief executive officer.
[13]
The economic recovery in the Far East helped restore profits as did the sale of Inchcape's forty nine per cent stake in
Toyota GB
to
Toyota
in 2000.
[14]
In 2006 Andre Lacroix took over as CEO
[15]
and in 2007 Inchcape acquired European Motor Holdings, a leading European motor retailer.
[16]
Then
Stefan Bomhard
took over as CEO in January 2015.
[17]
Previous logo
In December 2022, Inchcape announced its £1.3 billion GBP acquisition of
Latin America
’s largest independent automotive distributor, Derco, had been approved by Chilean authorities.
[18]
The company announced the disposal of its UK dealerships to
Group 1 Automotive
in April 2024.
[19]
Operations
[
edit
]
As of 2021, Inchcape operates in these countries:
[20]
- Europe
- United Kingdom
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- Poland
- Lithuania
- Latvia
- Estonia
- Finland
- Romania
- Bulgaria
- North Macedonia
- Greece
- Russia
- Americas & Africa
- Barbados
- Bolivia
- El Salvador
- Costa Rica
- Panama
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- Peru
- Chile
- Argentina
- Uruguay
- Djibouti
- Ethiopia
- Kenya
- Asia-Pacific
- Hong Kong
- Thailand
- Brunei
- Macau
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Guam
- Saipan
- Australia
- Philippines
References
[
edit
]
- Bibliography
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
|
| Commercial
vehicle
producers
| |
---|
Motorsport
| |
---|
| |
---|
Suppliers and
consultancies
| |
---|
Dealerships
| |
---|
Other services
| |
---|
|
---|
Government and
regulatory bodies
| |
---|
Related topics
| |
---|
|