William Lee says online trades just first modernisation step
You could say William Lee Tak-lun's kith and kin have gold running in their veins. Three generations of Lees have been trading bullion in China and Hong Kong since the 1940s.
Mr Lee, president of the Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, is now leading the 98-year-old exchange into the 21st century. The bourse introduced computerised trading recently to augment its open outcry system.
While that modernisation might seem to be a big break with tradition, Mr Lee's own roots are firmly anchored in gold trading.
His father Lee Woo-sing is a well-known broker who in the early 1940s was a gold trader in Shanghai. He continued with that trade after moving to Hong Kong in the 1950s.
Aside from his influence in financial circles, the elder Mr Lee is famous for his friendship with former premier and fellow opera lover Zhu Rongji. Both men are advanced Peking Opera amateurs who have practiced together from time to time. William Lee and his son have inherited that love of opera.
William Lee followed in his father's financial footsteps 25 years ago, setting up Grand Financial Group to trade securities and gold. He has been vice-chairman and chief executive while his son Robert recently joined as senior vice-president. With gold prices setting record highs, there is renewed investor interest in bullion.