Includes:
Kanan Devan Hills Produce Co Ltd, tea planters, Glasgow, Scotland, was formed in 1897 as a subsidiary of James Finlay & Co Ltd, textile manufacturers, tea planters, and merchants, Glasgow. It had been Sir John Muir, senior partner in James Finlay & Co Ltd, who had seen the possibilities for investment in the tea industry, which led to the formation of the four companies known as the Finlay Group: Amalgamated Tea Estates Co Ltd, tea planters, Glasgow, 1896 ; The Consolidated Tea & Lands Co Ltd, tea planters, Edinburgh, Scotland 1896 ; The Kanan Devan Hills Produce Co Ltd, 1897 ; and The Anglo-American Direct Tea Trading Co Ltd, tea planters, Edinburgh, 1898. This radically altered the basis of James Finlay & Co Ltd from a firm with its principal interest in cotton in Scotland to a firm with its principal interests in tea and jute in India. Kanan Devan Hills Produce Co Ltd s tea estates were in North Travancore, India, and had originally been the property of the North Travancore Land Planting & Agricultural Society, which had passed to Consolidated Tea & Lands Co Ltd. Consolidated Tea & Lands Co Ltd continued to hold a large interest in Kanan Devan Hills Produce Co Ltd up to the 1950s, although Finlay, Muir & Co Ltd, agents, and merchants, Calcutta, India, acted as managing agents. While a major portion of the produce was exported, in 1916 the surplus Tea from the Kanan Devan hills started being distributed in South India and Central India through the local Tea Sales Department. Finlay, Muir & Co Ltd held control over most of the estates till 1964, when James Finlay & Co Ltd entered into collaboration with Tata Tea Ltd, tea producers, Calcutta, India, for setting up an instant tea factory in the Kanan Devan hills. In 1976, Tata Tea Ltd took over the tea production and marketing operations of James Finlay & Co Ltd and a new company, Tata Finlay Ltd, was born. In 1983, James Finlay & Co Ltd sold their shareholdings in Tata Tea Ltd. The company was dissolved in 2001.
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