Cao Wenjin

Cao Wenjin (1925 – 12 August 2019) was born in Pudong, Shanghai; ancestral home in Daxie, Ningbo, Zhejiang. A shipping magnate in Hong Kong and Singapore, he was Chairman of Wanbang Group and known as the “Chinese Ship King.”

Biography

Cao was born into a shipping family. His grandfather founded the Cao Baoji river transport company at Shanghai’s Shiliupu Dock, and his father Cao Yinyun served as General Manager of the Industrial Bank. Cao attended Leaside High School in Shanghai and in 1945 graduated from St. John’s University, Shanghai, with a degree in Economics. In 1948 he moved to Hong Kong, and in 1949 co‑founded the Danan Steamship Company. In 1953 he invested in textile manufacturing in Malaysia. In 1966 he established Wanbang Shipping Company in Hong Kong.

In the early 1980s, he and shipping peer Y.K. Pao navigated the global downturn; fellow magnate Tung Hoy‑Yun also survived the crisis. In 1986 he invested in Singapore. By the late 1980s he rebuilt a fleet exceeding one million gross tons across more than twenty vessels. In the early 1990s he shifted bulk shipping operations to Singapore; by 2006 the Singapore office managed over eighty vessels.

He served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Port and Maritime Board’s Shipping Committee and Chairman of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association.

Honours

• 1973: Honorific title Dato’ Sri, conferred by the King of Malaysia
• 1999: Asia Shipping Personality of the Year
• 2001: Connecticut Maritime Award (first Asian recipient)
• 2006: Honorary Citizen of Dalian
• 2006: Silver Bauhinia Star, Hong Kong
• 2006: Honorary Doctor of Business Administration, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• 2006: Inaugural Individual Maritime Centre Award, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore
• 2007: Honorary Citizen of Singapore
• 2008: Lifetime Achievement Award, Asia Pacific Maritime Trade Association
• Honorary President, Leaside High School Alumni Association