Chao Kuang-piu, the founder of the first Chinese-owned airline in Hong Kong, passed away at the age of 100 early on Friday morning, according to the Shanghai-based digital news outlet The Paper.

The Paper cited Chao’s family members as saying that he died on Friday at 2.26 a.m. at the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital in Tsuen Wan. Apple Daily has been unable to contact anyone who is familiar with the matter to get confirmation.

Chao, whose ancestral roots are from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, was widely known as Hong Kong’s “Wool Magnate.” Born in Shanghai in 1920, he embarked on a career in the textile industry, founding the garment manufacturer and trader Novel Enterprises in 1964.

He expanded his business overseas to Portugal, the United States, France and Germany in the 1970s, becoming one of the world’s largest wool enterprises.

After he moved to Hong Kong in 1950, Chao became well known as a “patriotic” Hong Kong business figure. He was the first Hong Kong entrepreneur to invest and set up spinning mills in mainland China, in July 1978, the year that the ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping began a series of deep economic reforms on the mainland.

Chao was visited by both Deng and Chinese president Jiang Zemin in 1984 and 1997, respectively, who praised his patriotism and love for Hong Kong. China’s Purple Mountain Observatory named an asteroid after Chao.

The industrial tycoon established Dragonair in 1985 with shipping mogul Pao Yue-kong, entrepreneur Henry Fok, state-owned conglomerates China Resources and China Merchants Group, making it the city’s first Chinese-owned airline.

Dragonair, however, did not live until the day Chao died. In 2006, Cathay Pacific Airways, which is owned by the London-based diversified conglomerate Swire Group, took over the regional airline. It was renamed Cathay Dragon in 2016, but ceased operations in October last year after the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the travel business.

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