Can Alasdair Morrison save Jardine, one of British Hong Kongs remaining crown jewels?
In mid-March, Alasdair Morrison gathered 75 senior managers of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd., the venerable Hong Kong conglomerate, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Macao for a two-day sermon. The message: It’s time to make money. To ram the point home, Managing Director Morrison subjected his lieutenants to biting presentations by outside experts ranging from a professor from the French business school INSEAD to a Goldman, Sachs & Co. analyst. Businesses no longer will be judged on sales growth, Morrison warned, but on their ability to earn at least a 12% return on capital. Laggards will be candidates for the chopping block. If Morrison succeeds in his quest for profitability, he could put the Jardine group at the forefront of a wave of downsizing and refocusing among Asian companies, similar to what Corporate America went through in the 1980s. Moving Jardine into the vanguard of corporate excellence, however, is a tremendous challenge for this 167-year-old institution. Jardine is o
