Former PAG partner Lincoln Pan takes over as CEO of Jardines next week
Jardine Matheson’s third-quarter portfolio performance was in line with the group’s expectations, according to a management statement released late last week, as the Hong Kong-based conglomerate continues to chart its evolution from an owner-operator to a long-term investor in the private equity style.
Jardines kept its profit guidance for 2025 unchanged from at the half-year mark, when the parent group of developer Hongkong Land and hotel chain Mandarin Oriental reported a 45 percent year-on-year jump in six-month underlying profit to $798 million and an attributable profit of $528 million, reversing a year-earlier loss of $40 million.
Full-year results are expected to be broadly in line with last year, when Jardines posted flat revenue, an 11 percent dip in underlying profit to $1.47 billion and an attributable loss of $468 million, swinging from a profit of $686 million.
The nearly 200-year-old group controlled by the Keswick family is in the midst of a strategic shift that has seen the hiring of outside leaders including Mapletree veteran Michael Smith, who joined Hongkong Land as CEO last year, and PAG partner Lincoln Pan, who takes over as Jardines CEO on 1 December.
“With strong leadership teams in place and clear strategies across our portfolio companies, supported by a strong balance sheet, the company is well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities for mid- and long-term growth,” Jardines said.
Empire’s Mixed Bag
Hongkong Land, which contributed $320 million in underlying profit to Jardines in the first half of the year, reported a 13 percent year-on-year drop in third-quarter underlying profit on lower contributions from the builder’s Central-based hometown office portfolio.
Jardine Matheson executive chairman Ben Keswick
The declining results for the developer’s Central office holdings, a set of 12 interconnected commercial buildings at the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district, came despite lower vacancy in the high-end hub.
Hongkong Land did not provide information on third-quarter leasing rates in its Central portfolio, but its half-year results showed a slide to HK$95 ($12.10) per square foot per month in the January-June period from HK$103 in the same period last year.
At the end of October, Hongkong Land completed its second significant capital-recycling deal of 2025 with the sale of Southeast Asia developer MCL Land to Malaysia’s Sunway Group for $579 million. The divestment followed the first key capital-recycling transaction in April, the sale of office floors and retail spaces at One Exchange Square to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for HK$6.3 billion ($810 million).
Jardines said Mandarin Oriental saw slightly higher third-quarter net profit compared with a year earlier, benefiting from increased revenue per available room in all regions except Southeast Asia, with particularly robust growth in the Mideast and America.
Mandarin Oriental last month announced the $925 million sale of 13 floors at its newly completed Hong Kong commercial building, One Causeway Bay, to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. The hotel chain also agreed to a proposal by Jardines to acquire the 11.96 percent of equity in Mandarin Oriental not already held by the parent company, citing the low volume and liquidity of its SGX-traded shares.
Jardines’ Indonesia-based Astra arm, which contributed $388 million in underlying profit to the group in the first half, reported flat revenue and a modest decrease in underlying profit in the third quarter. In October, Astra announced the acquisition of Jakarta-based warehouse specialist Mega Manunggal Property for IDR 3.35 trillion ($202 million) as part of a strategy to increase Jardines’ exposure to infrastructure.
Outside Leadership Rises
Pan, who served as co-head of PAG’s private equity strategy until May of this year, takes the Jardines CEO reins next week from the retiring John Witt, who has held various senior positions since joining the group in 1993.
Pan previously served as Greater China CEO at Willis Towers Watson, held executive roles at Advantage Partners and GE Capital, and also worked at McKinsey & Company.
Jardines appointed the private equity executive to its top role just a half year after choosing Smith, formerly CEO for Europe and America at Singapore’s Mapletree Investments, to lead Hongkong Land in an effort to transform the real estate division into a manager of third-party capital.
