ABSTRACT
German overseas trading houses began to take a greater interest in investment opportunities in plantations in Southeast Asia in the 1890s. An outstanding example of this is the Arnold Otto Meyer company in Hamburg, which could rely on a close cooperation with its sister company Behn, Meyer & Co. in Singapore. However, German trading houses mostly lacked the capital strength to buy and operate large-scale plantations, like British companies did. To mitigate its investment risk, Arnold Otto Meyer started looking for additional interested parties. In 1910, this led to the formation of the German Belgian Straits and Sunda Syndicate. Based on newly accessed primary sources, the article explores which strategies these investors and their managers pursued to secure their investments in the colonial world of Southeast Asia. What methods did they use and what success did they have in getting a handle on the growing economic and political risks in the context of the two world wars? In 1945, the syndicate was forced to cease its business operations. But attempts to recover the war-confiscated property through an agreement with the Indonesian government continued until the 1970s.
