W e l c o m e
 
The history of Duncan Brothers dates back to 1858 when Mr Walter Duncan established Playfair Duncan & Co in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the capital of the undivided British-ruled Indian subcontinent. Later he was joined by his brother Mr William Duncan and the two brothers set up a company named Duncan Brothers and Company on 1 January 1875 to deal in cotton. Though the Company's involvement in tea came in 1865, its actual stride in tea business began onwards from 1880. By 1923 the Company had a firm grip on tea cultivation by taking in its possession 60 tea estates in Dooars, Assam and Sylhet encompassing nearly 20,000 hectares of cultivable land and producing a crop of about 14.50 million kilograms a year.
 

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 led to the setting up of Duncan Brothers (Pakistan) Limited on 20 January 1948 with its office in Chittagong. The newly established company in the then Pakistan assumed its Calcutta-based parent company's interests involving its tea estates in the Sylhet region. An assured market in the then West Pakistan helped a steady growth of the tea industry in the eastern part of the country and the Company soon became one of the country's leading producers. After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the name of the company was changed to Duncan Brothers (Bangladesh) Limited.

The Bangladesh War of Liberation in 1971 left a trail of devastation in the tea industry. The market in West Pakistan was lost and the Company incurred heavy losses from 1971 to 1974. At this juncture, Lawrie Group Plc became involved and assumed a controlling interest in Longbourne Holdings, the holding company for the 5 Duncan-managed UK-registered tea companies operating in Bangladesh. 
 
Tea is still the mainstay of Duncan Brothers. The Group now owns fifteen tea gardens located mainly in the greater Sylhet region and enjoys the distinction of being the largest producer of black tea in the country, producing over 13 million kilograms per annum, which is about one quarter of the country's production. Every season, the Group exports on its own about a million kilograms of tea with Pakistan being the major destination. 
 

Besides tea, the Group has also extended its interests in insurance, leasing, rubber, bottled water and warehousing, employing about 24,000 people and generating a gross annual turnover of about Tk 2.5 billion. With a splendid objective of doing business with a human face, the Group spends approximately Tk 85 million yearly towards corporate social responsibility, which includes flagship projects like a well-equipped 50-bed hospital for tea workers and their families and a residential school for workers' children, both located in the tea belt. 

 
All the gardens of the Group in Bangladesh, including the corporate office in Dhaka, are ISO-9002 certified for their quality management system.