The Louisiana and Shanghai Purchases.

In 1797 James Matheson was born and 13 years earlier William Jardine was born both men from Scotland who in 1832 formed together Jardine Matheson aged 35 and 48 respectively. They then began tea trading between Britain and Hong Kong and built one of the most successful companies known to man and certainly Asia.

In the year before Matheson’s birth Spain allied itself with France much to the ire of Britain who then used its Navy to cut Spain off from America. This then led to France selling 828,000 square miles of land in America to the home Givernment for $15 million. There were 530 million acres of land acquired at 2.8 cents per acre. It was Napoleon that sold the land and it was the worst property deal ever made caused by his need to raise money to fight others. The deal was known as the Louisiana Purchase and it doubled the size of the young Republic,

In March 2020 Henry Keswick descendant of the Scot and now in charge at Jardine Matheson acquired 23 acres of Shanghai in China for $4.4 billion ( United States Dollars ) or put simply for the British readers £139m or for my American readers $191 million per acre. By any stretch of any imagination it is a staggering acquisition especially at a time of global pandemic.

Last weekend Warren Buffet the recognised and accepted doyen of American business addressed the empty arena at the Annual General Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. Mr Buffet spoke of the Louisiana Purchase and the fortunes derived from that single purchase highlighting the incredible achievements of his 231 year old country. Mr Buffet told us that the deposit was paid in Gold and that $3.75m of the price in forgiven French debt.

In 200 years time will the purchase of those 23 acres of land in Shanghai be of equal merit. I very much doubt that it will be but one thing is for sure China will have overtaken the wealth of America though unlikely to ever see the exponential growth that was seen by America. Buffet says be sure to back America, Henry Keswick by his purchase invites all his shareholders to back China though we will never know what the world of 2220 will look like.

What we do know is they are making no more land but we may perhaps be inhabiting more distant territories in outer Space as far away as America seemed in 1803 and with equal growth prospect. Isn’t life amazing ?