Sometimes called the Warren Buffett of Hong Kong, he initially made his billions building apartments for the middle-class descendants of refugees from mainland China.
Lee Shau-kee, a Hong Kong property tycoon who made his fortune building tens of thousands of apartments for middle-class descendants of refugees from communist mainland China, died on Monday. He was 97.
His death was announced by the company he founded, Henderson Land Development. It did not say where he died or what the cause was.
At 70, Mr. Li had grown even richer through shrewd financial investments that led some to call him the Warren Buffett of Hong Kong. At the time of his death, Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $29.2 billion, making him the 63rd richest person in the world.
Mr. Lee founded Henderson Land Development in 1976. By the time he stepped down as chairman and managing director in 2019 at age 91, the company had grown to 10,000 employees and expanded beyond property development to include hotels, department stores and natural gas distribution.
He began his career as a gold and currency trader, reinvesting his profits in property. Most speculators and developers favored the pricier plots of land on Hong Kong Island. But Mr. Lee was confident that the growing influx of hard-working, fast-growing mainland refugees and their descendants would drive up property prices. He took a gamble, buying up large tracts of cheap farmland in the New Territories, which border the mainland.
