Swire chairman admired to end

When David Gledhill retired as taipan of the Swire Group in the spring of 1992, he made it plain he was not going to follow the familiar trail of many top businessmen and return to London. Hong Kong had been his home for much of his life, and he was determined to stay.

And that he did, although the long illness which he suffered for more than a year finally claimed him last week, aged 65, in the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London.

Gledhill, CBE, had a long and distinguished 33-year career with Swire, 21 of those years in Hong Kong. He was chairman of the group in Hong Kong when he retired. The group usually sees its top people step down from the chairmanship at 55; he stayed another 30 months.

He was educated at Cambridge University and served in the Royal Artillery. He joined the shipping department of Butterfield and Swire in 1958 when he came to Hong Kong. Shipping, which he saw as the most vital link in world trade and key to Hong Kong business progress, held a fascination for him. He worked in shipping throughout his career and it was while posted in Japan that he met his wife, Kyoko.

The string of directorships he held before being named chairman concentrated on docks, containers, travel and shipping agencies, as well as Swire Properties. As chairman of Cathay Pacific, he was, logically, on the Provisional Airport Authority, but this role ended long before the opening fiasco.

He looked at Hong Kong's growing links with the mainland as a realist. 'We are harnessed to China,' he said after Tiananmen. 'If they prosper, then we prosper.' His interests were wide. He was a council member of the University of Hong Kong; on the board of the Community Chest; chairman of the Employers' Federation; a committee member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Consultative Committee for the Basic Law. His many directorships included Hongkong Bank (now HSBC).

He predicted a bright future for Hong Kong, but was sufficiently canny to warn - in 1992 - that there could be a property crash in Hong Kong after the change of rule. But he also warned that the market must be left to make its own adjustments.