How it started
1847–1950
In 1847, William Mackinnon and Robert Mackenzie formed the Mackinnon Mackenzie Company (MMC), a general merchanting partnership based in Calcutta. In 1856, Mackinnon formed the Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company to carry post to the region: the Company appointed MMC as its agent and secured contracts to transport British troops from Ceylon to India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1862 under the name British India Steam Navigation Company.
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. 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 that he had known well from sailing on voyages with his shipmaster father. 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.
1950–1990
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. In August 1958, Inchcape and Company became a public company and offered twenty five per cent of its equity for sale on the London Stock Exchange.
Throughout this period, Inchcape's growth came largely as a result of a series of mergers and acquisitions. During 1967, it merged with Borneo Company Limited, which almost doubled the company's size via the addition of operations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Canada, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand to the operation. In 1971, Millars of Western Australia was purchased for $5 million.
From Wikipedia’s article on Inchcape plc, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2