Big Brothers

Seldom has Hong Kong's business been better. Big hotels such as the fustily genteel Peninsula and Repulse Bay are packed with tourists. The repair yards of the Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co. hum with ships coming and going. Passengers crowd the Star Ferry Co. boats and the Peak Tramways' cable cars, which provide the most spectacular 10-c- rides in the world. China Light & Power Co. is adding four 60-megawatt turbines at a total cost of $34 million.

This bustle brings a special glow to a remarkable pair of brothers named Lawrence and Horace Kadoorie, for they control all those profitable enterprises, as well as 30 others. With a personal worth of $30 million and yearly dividend earnings estimated at $2,000,000. the Kadoories, rather than the wealthy Chinese in the colony, are the richest businessmen in Hong Kong.

Cheaper Than Concubines. The brothers work in rare tandem. They share a joint bank account, have adjacent offices at Sir Elly Kadoorie & Sons. Ltd., which is named after their late father, an Iraqi Jew who became a naturalized British subject, went to Hong Kong in 1880 and carved out a fortune in land, rubber, banking and insurance. Together, the brothers sit on the boards of 36 major companies. Restless, sophisticated Lawrence Kadoorie, 63, has also been on several government administrative boards, pays particular attention to the power company, the biggest Kadoorie investment. He collects ancient Chinese art works because "it gives me a sense of calmness," and dotes on sports cars because "they're cheaper than race horses or concubines." Horace Kadoorie, 60, a nervous bachelor, oversees, the brothers' philanthropies and is involved in "trams, ferries, wharfs and rubber plantations--but I'm not very much interested in business."

Horace likes to tool his air-conditioned Jaguar through refugee villages, passing out money and practicing his broken Chinese. Since 1951, the Kadoories have disbursed almost $3,000,000 in noninterest loans and gifts for refugee aid, roads, bridges and canals in villages hard against Red China. Their work with refugees--for which the brothers won Southeast Asia's prestigious 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service--is considered enlightened self-interest by the Kadoories, on the ground that business in Hong Kong prospers only if the colony is well fed and politically stable. The brothers have also taken a lead in establishing new industries in labor-surfeited Hong Kong. They helped Refugee Cotton Magnate Y. C. Wong get started, and they were among the founders of the five-year-old Hong Kong Carpet Manufacturing Co., whose customers include New York's Nelson Rockefeller and the royal families of Britain, Thailand and Ethiopia.

Adhere & Prosper. Some businessmen grumble that the brothers have not pioneered enough, have merely expanded the rich empire that Sir Elly Kadoorie built. China Light & Power is also under fire for raising rates (and profits) above those of competing Hong Kong Electric. Under government pressure, China Light agreed last week to merge with smaller Hong Kong Electric. The brothers are determined to hold control of the new giant. The Kadoories smile away all criticism. Says Brother Lawrence: "We've grown with Hong Kong, and we consider ourselves Hong Kongers first. Britishers second. We intend to remain here." Carrying on the family credo, which is "Adhere and Prosper," Lawrence's only son, Michael, 21, is training at a bank in Britain, will go home soon to pick up third-generation supervision.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.