privately held industry various headquarters colombo sri lanka key people dilith jayaweera chairman products tea health travel aviation and recruitment website official website the george steuart group of companies george steuarts is sri lanka s oldest mercantile establishment having been established in 1835 during british occupation of ceylon . it is probably one of the oldest mercantile entities in the world with a recorded history dating back to the early 19th century . having begun operations as a merchant banker and then a produce broker george steuarts today includes businesses engaged in tea exports health leisure travel real estate telecommunications shipping insurance recruitment and higher education . history edit the company traces its origins to captain james steuart 1790 1870 a british sea captain who sailed the southern seas in the early 1800s and settled in ceylon in 1818 . seeing the commercial potential of the island captain steuart set himself up as merchant and banker . steuart was subsequently appointed master attendant of the roads of colombo a position which precluded him from continuing his commercial activities . as a result he invited his younger brother george 1808 1896 to take over the business which in 1835 resulted in the establishment of george steuart and company . 1 in the late 1830s and early 1840s ceylon became a major producer of coffee and the company became a large scale exporter of the commodity . from 1869 ceylon s coffee industry was decimated by coffee rust that afflicted its plantations ; george steuart was amongst the pioneers that converted their export interests to tea supporting an industry that would soon become synonymous with ceylon . george steuart 1808 1896 james steuart 1790 1870 the descendants of the steuart brothers incorporated george steuart & co in 1954 building a high rise steuart house at the heart of colombo which became the company headquarters . in 1975 the sri lankan government launched a nationalisation programme of privately held tea plantations ; which led to the take over of 90 % of the group s holdings the largest acreage of tea plantations at the time . as a result the company proceeded on a path of diversification expanding into textile production automotive spare parts gem exports telecommunications and jewellery manufacturing thereby reducing its exposure to any single industry . 2 over the next few decades the group expanded its footprint in several industries ; as of 2014 major subsidiaries of george steuarts included gs health gs teas gs travel gs aviation gs finance gs solutions gs optimize gs insurance brokers and gs recruitment . in september 2011 nimal perera and dilith jayaweera through his investment company divasa equity ltd. acquired over 40 % of george steuarts in a deal worth approximately rs 1 billion . divasa subsequently in october increased their stake in the company to a controlling 51 % and perera s holdings increased to 30 % . 3 a few months later nimal perera exited george steuarts selling his stake to jayaweera s divasa equity . references edit sri lanka anglo burgher genealog . rootsweb.ancestry.com . retrieved 4 august 2014 . george steuarts lanka s oldest business looking to the future . sunday times . 28 september 2010 . archived from the original on 11 august 2014 . retrieved 1 october 2016 . dilith nimal strike it big . daily financial times . 12 september 2011 . retrieved 4 august 2014 . external links edit retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title george steuart group & oldid 742059369 categories companies established in 1835sri lanka company stubscompanies based in sri lanka1835 establishments in ceylon navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 1 october 2016 at 12 41 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view