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Denise Tsang

The sudden death of shipping tycoon Frank Chao Sze-bang has sent ripples through Hong Kong's shipping industry, which his family helped build over the past five decades.

Chao, 66, whose family founded one of Hong Kong's biggest shipping firms, Wah Kwong Shipping Holdings, died of a heart attack at the weekend.

Founder Chao Tsong-yea, Frank Chao's father, died in May 1999 aged 88.

Industry bodies yesterday paid tribute to Frank Chao for his active role in promoting the industry overseas and for fighting for the interests of Hong Kong's shipping firms in his dealings with the Government.

Hong Kong Shipowners Association director Arthur Bowring said: 'The death of Frank Chao is a great loss to the industry.

'He had been very much involved in the association's activities even after stepping down as Wah Kwong Shipping director and vice-chairman in late 1999.

'Wah Kwong Shipping is a very important company in the industry.'

Frank Chao was a former chairman of the 43-year-old association, which represents the majority of Hong Kong's shipowners, brokers and managers.

His younger brother, George Chao Sze-kwong, is also active in the association, as a member of its China sub-committee and chairman of its insurance sub-committee.

The Chao family emerged as one of the three pillars of the Hong Kong shipping industry in the late-1940s, alongside the families of Sir Pao Yue-kong of Worldwide Shipping and Tung Chao-yung of Orient Overseas Container Line, father of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

In recent years, the Chao family has been dogged by controversy, becoming entangled in a bitter dispute in 1998 over control of Wah Kwong, part of the late Chao Tsong-yea's estate.

The dispute split the family in two, pitting Frank Chao, George Chao and Chao Tsong-yea's daughter Mary Chao Sze-leung against youngest son and property developer Cecil Chao Sze-tsung and Chao Tsong-yea's late wife Chao Nyi Ya-tsung.

The saga reached its conclusion last July with the privatisation of Wah Kwong by George Chao and his business partner, Belgium-based shipping firm Compagnie Maritime Belge.

According to the company's privatisation document issued last June, Wah Kwong boasted a fleet of 25 vessels.



Tributes follow sudden death of tycoon who helped build industry