The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited (BBTC) is an Indian

trading company Trading companies are businesses working with different kinds of products which are sold for consumer, business, or government purposes. Trading companies buy a specialized range of products, maintain a stock or a shop, and deliver products to custo ...

based in Mumbai which is owned by the

Wadia Group Wadia Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Mumbai. It was founded by Lovji Nusserwanjee Wadia in 1736 and is the oldest company in India, with its subsidiary The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, establis ...

. It was formed in 1863 by the

Wallace Brothers The Wallace brothers were the six sons of Edinburgh architect Lewis Wallace. In varying combinations, the brothers established themselves as one of the leading nineteenth century East India merchants, trading in cotton, tea, coffee and other commo ...

of Scotland. It is India's oldest publicly traded company, and was established to engage in the Burmese tea business through the initial step of taking over the Burmese assets of William Wallace. The company's founding occurred when the six Wallace Brothers, originally members of a Scottish merchant house in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, first arrived in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

(now Mumbai) in the 1840s. A Bombay partnership was formed in 1848 as "Wallace Bros & Co". In the mid-1850s the Wallaces set up a business in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

, shipping tea to Bombay. In 1863 the business was floated as "The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation". Its equity was held by both Indian merchants along with the Wallace Brothers, who had the controlling interests. By the 1870s the company was a leading producer of

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

, as well as having interests in cotton, oil exploration and shipping. British motivations for the

third Anglo-Burmese War The Third Anglo-Burmese War ( my, တတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် – မြန်မာစစ်, Tatiya Anggalip–Mran cac), also known as the Third Burma War, took place during 7–29 November 1885, with sporadic resistance conti ...

were partly influenced by concerns of the BBTC. The Burmese state's conflict with the BBTC furnished British leaders with a pretext for conquest. By the 1880s Wallace Brothers had become a leading financial house in London. This firm was able to affect the intelligence about Burma and, more critically, about the growing French influence in the country. The Vissanji family purchased the company from the Wallace brothers around the time of Indian independence. In 1992, the BBTC acquired and merged in BCL Springs. Later, BBTC was acquired by the

Wadia The Wadia family is a Parsi family from Surat, India currently based in Mumbai, India. The family rose to wealth in the mid-1700s as ship-builders serving the British East India Company as the latter established its sway over India. During t ...

group based in Bombay.

References

Economic history of India Trading companies of the United Kingdom Indian companies established in 1863 Companies based in Mumbai Wadia Group Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange Tea companies of India Shipping companies of India Oil and gas companies of India Cotton industry in India Forest products companies India–Myanmar relations Third Anglo-Burmese War {{India-company-stub

See also

Further reading

References