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Ben Kwok

Loyal service builds firm foundations
How would you like to be rewarded for your long service?
A Ferrari perhaps, or a Franck Muller watch?
A house? Or more likely a simple handshake  (of the ungilded variety)?
Consider Henderson Land Development vice-chairman Colin Lam Ko-yin, whose boss Lee Shau-kee has volunteered to donate a  building  to the university where Mr Lam graduated.
Today Mr Lee is to announce his HK$500 million  donation to the University of Hong Kong. At the same time, he will also name a new learning centre after Mr Lam, his top aide, who graduated from HKU's Science Faculty, and has been with Henderson since 1982.
Mr Lee also will have a  lecture hall - to be completed by 2011 - named after him.
This will be  Mr Lee's biggest single donation so far.  It will also be the largest donation to HKU since Li Ka-shing  gave it  HK$1 billion  in 2005.
While it's nice to get cash in hand - ask Mr Li's top manager Canning Fok Kin-ning, who receives a nine-digit cheque from his boss every year - having a university building named after you is hard to beat.
A helping hand
Still on the subject of  generous  businessmen, we note that the owner of blue-chip supply chain specialist Li & Fung recently opened its wallet to help overseas students.
The Li & Fung Foundation donated US$1 million to  Singapore Management University to fund 20 undergraduates for its international exchange programme.
Mainland expansion
A Chinese  bent in education seems to be the in thing these days.
Apparently, the University of Waterloo, which celebrated its 50th birthday in Hong Kong this week, will soon announce plans to build a campus in Nanjing.
Known as  a cradle for techies and a  source of bright young things  for Microsoft Corp, Google and Research in Motion (which created the  popular, but inedible, Blackberry), Waterloo University is looking to share its mathematics and computing academic expertise with  the mainland.
More than 3,000 of its  graduates every year are either from the mainland  or  Hong Kong.
Eminently qualified
The  resume of 'Hong Kong toy king' Dr Francis Choi Chee-ming makes for interesting reading, says corporate gadfly David Webb.
The non-executive vice-chairman of Town Health International Holdings and Regal Hotels International Holdings reportedly has a bachelor of administration degree from Sussex College of Technology in Britain, an MBA from Newport University in the United States, and a PhD from the Harbin Institute of Technology in  Heilongjiang.
According to  Mr Webb, Sussex College of  Technology is not an accredited British institution, and its website reads like an  advertisement. Newport University's website said it was 'approved' by the Bureau of Private Post-secondary and Vocational Education.
While there is no doubt that the Harbin Institute of Technology is a bona fide tertiary institution, Mr Webb said he would love to read Mr Choi's doctoral thesis.
Mr Choi has been a council member of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University since 2004.
He does not know why his education background has become hot topic. 'If these are not qualified education institutes, I'll probably ask them for a refund,' he said.
Temple renovation
Moving on from education, we learned  that Sun Hung Kai Properties' Kwok Foundation  has donated 27 million yuan over the past three years to renovate West Yellow Temple, a 350-year-old temple in northern Beijing. The  project is expected to be completed  in time for the Olympic Games.



Lai See