[1] In the same year, he established a trading company, Boustead & Co.[2] Boustead & Co specialised in import and export, offering goods such as banca tin, spices, saps, rattan, medicinal herbs, silk and tea widely available in South East Asia in exchange for Western products like cloth, oil and machinery.

Boustead & Co commissioned Irish civil architect, George Drumgoole Coleman to design the company's headquarters alongside the Singapore River.

[4] Import of Western commodities such as textiles and machinery had to be balanced with exports of Eastern produce such as copra, coconut, pepper and tapioca.

[8] In 1892 Boustead & Co handled the first shipment of bulk oil to Penang and shortly after this the Shell Transport and Trading Company was formed with Isaac Henderson acting as one of its original directors.

Boustead & Co played a leading role as promoter and investor in the tin smelting facility on Pulau Brani, constructed by the Straits Trading Company.

Some of the famous brand names that became synonymous with Boustead were Cadbury's, Nestlé, Del Monte, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Johnnie Walker, Hennessy, Moët & Chandon, Nissan, Suzuki and Thomas Cook.

In 2014 Boustead & Co. co-founded Noble Tree Property Investment, a property company focused on socially responsible investing that develops, owns, lets and sells affordable housing and specialty supported housing developments across the United Kingdom.