This article examines the collusion between the only two major banks to operate in British West Africa for most of the colonial period after 1916, Barclays and the Bank of British West Africa. The companies' records reveal that the alliance was more far-reaching than has previously been shown, escalating to include not only comprehensive price-fixing but also restrictions on the products offered. The article considers the reactions of African and European customers and the colonial governments, and analyzes the motives that sustained the collusion for so long and the political circumstances that permitted it. The arrangement was partly a defensive response to a perception that the market was too small for full rivalry, but there was a rent-seeking element too. Finally, the article explores the implications of the bank alliance for the broader economies, reflecting on the relation between the security that the banks achieved through their agreements and their very cautious lending policies.

Although free-standing companies helped facilitate international capital flows in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their ability to operate effectively over the long run in a global economy has been questioned. This essay looks at one free-standing company, the Penang Sugar Estates, Ltd., in British Malaya to assess its managerial performance and strategies for transferring information. Through diversification, subcontracting, reorganization, and increased tolerance for local knowledge, the firm surmounted the information asymmetries that gave trouble during its early decades and increased profits. The Malayan sugar industry benefited from its imperial location, which brought significant advantages.

Development, modernity, and industrialization became dominant themes in corporate advertising in Africa in the 1950s and remained prevalent through the following two decades while many African nations were gaining independence. British businesses operating there created a publicity strategy that couched their presence in less developed countries in terms of a commitment and a positive contribution to the progress of the new states. Eventually, British companies tried to “Africanize” their corporate image through these campaigns.