Opportunity Surfing: Arbitrage Across Borders and Commodities

“There were many larger and older-established China traders than David Sassoon & Sons, but none more flexible or so diversified. They became shippers without the risks of shipowning, and acted as brokers or bankers to smaller traders in need of capital. They also started up as commission agents, buying and selling cargoes for others who discovered that the Sassoon turnover guaranteed them excellent cargo space at reasonable freight rates. Above all, they were warehousemen with an interest in some of the choicest wharves in the Far East.”

“By the end of the century, one-third of India's half million factory workers were in cotton, with the Sassoon mills or their associated concerns among the largest employers. E. D. Sassoon & Company had several thousand hands on their payroll with an output, man for man, far higher than that of any other plant in Bombay and even several in Lancashire. Jacob had shown foresight in briefing his brothers in London to explore ways and means of streamlining cotton manufacture. He was eager to replace the old chaotic factory layout by a planned co-ordination which would save space and revitalize output. Spectacular results were achieved. He became the first millowner in India to install a conveyor-belt. It was crude and suffered many an early breakdown through careless operators, but for a time he alone was feeding raw cotton to his looms and seeing the finished yarn emerge, ripe for the bale and quickly on its way to the Bombay docks. With a minimum of delay, massive shipments of yarn could be dispatched not only to the Persian Gulf but to the Japanese ports beyond China.”