Y. K. Pao, 73; Clerk Rose to Shipping Billionaire

Y. K. Pao, the Shanghai clerk who became one of the world’s richest men, died Monday. He was 73 and had been suffering from asthma and other respiratory problems for two years, a family spokesman said.

Pao died in his modest house in the Deep Water Bay residential area on Hong Kong island.

Born Yue-kong Pao, but known throughout his life by his initials, Pao built up one of the world’s biggest merchant shipping fleets but was modest about his fortune. He rarely carried cash, preferring to borrow from his driver.

Fortune magazine, in a list of billionaires published this month, estimated his wealth at $1.3 billion.

But Pao said in an interview in 1986 he could not remember when he made his first million or how much he was worth.

“It’s better, I think, not to remember how much money you have, so you will still work hard.”

Sir Pao, knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in 1978 and honored by Brazil, Panama, Belgium and Japan, was born at Ningpo in China’s Zhejiang province.

After starting as a bank clerk in Shanghai he rose to the second highest position in the bank. He fled to Hong Kong before the Communist takeover of China in 1949 and set up an import-export business before turning to shipping in 1955 with the purchase of a second-hand, coal-burning freighter.

At its height his shipping company boasted 200 vessels totaling more than 20 million dead-weight tons.

Pao, who had only a high school education, once was asked why he chose to go into shipping. He replied that at the time it was difficult to break into other well-established businesses in Hong Kong.

“I did not want to be an employee of any firm or bank. . . . Shipping is a worldwide business with floating, movable assets that can be shifted to any part of the world,” he said.

To broaden his empire he out-maneuvered rivals in 1980 to gain control of a major Hong Kong real estate company, the Hong Kong & Kowloon Wharf Co., with valuable assets on the British colony’s highly prized waterfront.

He gave up most of his corporate positions at World International, representing his shipping interests, and other companies in 1986, although he was often seen in his office for a few hours a day.

He maintained good relations with the government in Beijing, which chose him as vice chairman of a committee to draft the Basic Law under which the territory will be governed when China takes over Hong Kong in 1997.

He was a popular figure in both Hong Kong and China, making huge donations to public works in his home town where he was regarded as a hero.

But investors looked less kindly on the Pao empire, which made serious financial blunders in the 1980s, including the restructuring of Wharf Holdings’ assets in 1986.