The story
The company has its origin in the colonial era, having founded by merging two companies founded by R. B. Carson and Henry Cumberbatch (nephew of Robert William Cumberbatch). The rubber interest of the Carson and Company traded in 1910 in London Stock Exchange with a capital of 1.5 million sterling pounds thus making it the largest rubber business of the country at that time. The Carson and Company converted to a limited liability company in 1913, and the merger with Cumberbatch and Company happened in 1947. In 1976, the company diversified into hotels by building the Giritale Hotel and Moonlight Beach Hotel and taking over the management of Pegasus Reef Hotel. In 1988, Sri Krishna Corporation Limited, a 75 years old company, acquired a controlling interest in Carson Cumberbatch. In 1995, Carson expanded its palm oil interest into Indonesia, and in 1997 a new brewery in Biyagama was commissioned.
In 2006, through Agro Bukit, the company acquired a new plantation of 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Goodhope Asia Holdings was incorporated in 2008 in Singapore to consolidate the company's plantation sector, and in 2014 the company acquired the Millers Brewery. In September 2020, Ceylon Guardian Investment Trust PLC, the investment managing subsidiary of Carson Cumberbatch entered into an agreement with Singapore-based Gazelle Asset Management to sell 84% of the stake of Guardian Capital Partners PLC. When that agreement did not realise, Carson Cumberbatch, sold a 75.6% stake of Guardian Capital Partners PLC to a Renuka Holdings-led consortium for LKR636 million in October 2021.
From Wikipedia’s article on Carson Cumberbatch, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4