17 JUNE 1989, Page 20

Henry and the tiger

THAT will show the Chinese. The great Hong Kong trading house of Jardine Matheson — 'the Princely Hong' — is bringing up reinforcements. Henry Kes- wick is to be chairman of Jardine Matheson Holdings and Jardine Strategic, succeeding a younger man (to be exact, his younger brother Simon). Henry is the former taipan (which translates rather limply as 'chief executive') who then became the prop- rietor of The Spectator, and did much to restore its fortunes, at the partial expense of his own. He once said to me that owning The Spectator was like riding a tiger — the hardest bit was to get off. Owning Hong Kong is like that, too.