Lai See
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.