Johnson Matthey /

Johnson Matthey plc (LSE: JMAT) is a major British chemical company and conglomerate, with its headquarters near Holborn in central London. Its stock is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Johnson Matthey traces its origins to 1817, when Percival Norton Johnson set up business as a gold assayer in London. In 1851 George Matthey joined the business and its name was changed to Johnson & Matthey. The following year the firm was appointed Official Assayer & Refiner to the Bank of England. The company had branches in the cities of Birmingham and Sheffield to supply the jewellery and silverware and cutlery trade with raw materials ancillary supplies, such as silver solder and flux which it manufactured. In the 1960s Johnson Matthey formed a subsidiary, Johnson Matthey Bankers (JMB), which took its seat in the London Gold Fixing. In the early 1980s the bank expanded its activities outside the bullion business and started making high-risk loans. Bank assets more than doubled between 1980 and 1984, and loans became concentrated to a few borrowers, including Mahmoud Sipra and his El Saeed group, Rajendra Sethia and ESAL Commodities, and Abdul