Sime Darby Berhad () is a Malaysian trading conglomerate. Its core businesses operate and serve in the industrial, motors and logistics sectors as well as the healthcare, and insurance segments. Background The modern Sime Darby Berhad corporation was created in 2007 through a merger of three companies. Sime, Darby and Co. Limited In October 1910, British businessmen William Sime and Henry Darby established Sime, Darby and Co., a fledgling player in the lucrative rubber industry. The company later diversified to cultivating palm oil and cocoa and met with enormous success. At the time of the company's founding, William Middleton Sime was a 37-year-old Scottish adventurer and fortune seeker. He had two failed ventures behind him – one in import-export business and the other in coffee plantations – when he left his job as a mercantile assistant in Singapore. Henry Darby was a wealthy 50-year-old English banker who owned property in Northern Malaya. A senior partner of the audit firm of the Sime Darby group was found dead in September 1973. In two suicide letters, he alleged he was doped and deceived by Dennis Pinder, chairman and managing director of Sime Darby, related to the audit of Sime Darby. Subsequently, Dennis Pinder was alleged that he misappropriated over S$3 million. At that time, Sime Darby was one of the largest companies in Singapore and Malaysia. Pinder was jailed after pleading guilty to criminal breach of trust in October 1975. In 1977 Sime Darby Holdings was acquired by Malaysian investors – mainly through Tradewinds (Malaysia) Sendirian Berhad. In December 1979 with the incorporation of two new Malaysian entities, Sime Darby Berhad (SDB) and Consolidated Plantations Berhad (CPB), Sime Darby moved its headquarters to Kuala Lumpur and became a Malaysian registered and managed concern. Guthrie The company was founded in Singapore in 1821 by Alexander Guthrie. It was the first British trading company in South East Asia. Guthrie introduced rubber and oil palm in Malaysia in 1896 and 1924 respectively. Guthrie Group was made a public company in 1987 and was subsequently listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) in 1989 in what was then the largest public issue in Malaysia. Golden Hope In 1905 Harrisons and Crosfield, a British tea and coffee trading company, purchased several small estates in Malaysia for £50,000 and amalgamated them to form the Golden Hope Rubber Estate. In 1982 Harrisons and Crosfield sold three large plantation