HAKING WONG, the industrialist whose empire stretched from toothbrushes to Halina cameras, has died aged 90.
Born to a moderately wealthy family, his first business venture in his teens - a shirt-manufacturing business - failed.
He turned to trading and ran a small shipyard, which also failed.
It was only when he became general manager of Hongkong Rubber Manufacturing that his fortune turned. He met his long-time business partner Pauline Chan, and started a business importing toothbrushes.
After fleeing to Guangzhou during the Japanese occupation, W Haking Enterprise became a classic Hong Kong success story, making rubber shoes, toothbrushes, sweets, bicycles, tyres and screws using the plentiful cheap labour that fled from China.
By 1957, his was the only local company to successfully produce cameras and binoculars, under the Halina brand name derived from the partners' names. They sold 500,000 cameras a year in Japan.