Joseph Lau

Joseph Lau Luen-hung
Born	(1951-07-21) July 21, 1951 Hong Kong
Occupation(s)	Entrepreneur, art and wine collector
Years active	1974–present
Known for	Former chairman of Chinese Estates, art and wine collections

Joseph Lau Luen-hung (; born 21 July 1951) is a billionaire entrepreneur from Hong Kong and the former chairman of the property development firm Chinese Estates. Known for his passion for collecting art and fine wines, his fortune was valued by Forbes at $13.3 billion as of September 2021. In 2014, he was found guilty in Macau and subsequently became a fugitive.

Lau lives in one of Hong Kong’s priciest residences on Goldsmith Road, Jardine's Lookout, which is estimated to be worth HK$2.5 billion and is shared with Chan Hoi-wan.

Life and career

Born in Hong Kong on 19 July 1951, Joseph Lau pursued his studies at the University of Windsor in Canada before entering the family electric fan enterprise in 1974. He established Evergo Industrial Enterprise in 1978, which went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 1983. By 1985, Evergo transitioned its business focus toward investment holding and property management.

In 1986, Lau acquired a controlling interest in Chinese Estates Holdings by purchasing a 43% stake via Evergo. He broadened the company’s real estate assets through acquisitions and expanded into Mainland China in 1988 with projects such as the Oriental Arts Building Complex and Beijing’s Hilton Hotel. In 1998, Chinese Estates secured a majority stake in the publicly listed Kwong Sang Hong International Limited.

Chinese Estates was responsible for developing The ONE, the tallest retail centre in Hong Kong, which opened its doors in 2010. In 2017, Lau transferred ownership of this property to his wife Kimbee Chan Hoi-wan and their children.

After being convicted of bribery and money laundering charges in Macau, Lau stepped down as chairman and CEO of Chinese Estates in March 2014. His son, Lau Ming-wai, took over as chairman, while Kimbee’s elder sister Sue Chan assumed the role of CEO.

Charity

Since the early 1990s, Lau and his Charitable Trust have contributed nearly HK$5 billion, with donations primarily directed toward education and healthcare (each accounting for roughly 20%), followed by support for disadvantaged communities (10%), as well as environmental and cultural projects.

A film aficionado, Lau’s Trust provided HK$10 million to the Fresh Wave Film Festival in 2018 to back emerging local filmmakers. Amid the pandemic, it granted another HK$10 million to assist grassroots film industry workers through the Hong Kong Performing Artistes Guild. In 2021, the Trust invested HK$15 million alongside One Cool Group to produce five local films and donated an additional HK$10 million to the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers’ pandemic relief efforts.

That same year, the Trust launched a scholarship initiative with an allocation close to HK$1 million aimed at supporting talented underprivileged students attending Hong Kong’s eight leading universities, including HKU, CUHK, and HKUST.

In 2023, Kimbee Chan and her eldest daughter Josephine traveled to impoverished regions within Sichuan’s Liangshan area to promote educational opportunities for girls.

In 2025, The Joseph Lau Luen Hung Charitable Trust contributed HK$400 million toward constructing a medical complex at The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University—part of a total investment exceeding HK$600 million—which was named 劉鑾雄樓 (Lau Luen Hung Building) in his honour. This facility enhances critical care services, emergency response capabilities, and features specialist centres developed through collaborations with Harvard’s Mass General Brigham and Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It includes an intensive care unit equipped with state-of-the-art electric beds, an emergency centre, surgical facilities, and a rooftop helipad that supports rapid medical response across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Lau Ming-Wai has also played a major philanthropic role. In 2016, he donated US$50 million (approximately HK$390 million) to Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet to establish the "Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine"—the Institutet’s first research centre located outside Sweden.

Art and wine collections

Lau is a passionate art enthusiast, recognized as one of the ARTnews's "Top 200 Collectors." In 2017, Forbes valued his art holdings at approximately $1 billion.

Among his significant purchases are Jean-Michel Basquiat's Everything Must Go (1984), Andy Warhol's Mao (1977), which he acquired for $17.4 million at Christie's in 2006, and Paul Gauguin's Te Poipoi (The Morning) (1892), bought for $39.2 million at Sotheby's in 2007. In 2020, Lau sold David Hockney's The Splash (1966) at Sotheby's London for $29.9 million, marking it as the third highest price achieved for a Hockney piece at auction.

His collection also includes more than 10,000 bottles of red wine. During Sotheby's Hong Kong auction in October 2020, his French wine sales reached $6.8 million, surpassing estimates by over twice the anticipated amount. Building on this success, Lau sold another 533 bottles across 147 lots at Sotheby's Hong Kong, once again realizing $6.8 million and doubling the preliminary predictions.

In May 2025, Lau's "Iconic Wines Part III" live auction at Christie's significantly outperformed expectations, generating HK$72.9 million—more than twice the low estimate. The highest-priced item was a set of 10 bottles of Henri Jayer's Vosne-Romanée Cros Parantoux 1999, which sold for HK$3.25 million, exceeding its low estimate by over threefold. The collection featured esteemed labels including Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Lafite, Leflaive, and Petrus.

Personal life

Lau wed Po Wing-kam (1954–2003) in 1977; the marriage ended in divorce in 1992. They had two children: son Lau Ming-wai (born 1979) and daughter Jade Lau Sau-yung (born 1983). Lau Ming-wai holds British citizenship and serves as vice-chairman of Chinese Estates Group. He also chairs the government's Commission on Youth and participates on the steering committee of the HK$10 billion Community Care Fund, established in 2010. Previously, he was a member of the Commission on Poverty and part of Henry Tang's team during the 2012 chief executive election.

In addition to these children, Lau fathered four others with two women outside of marriage: two children with Yvonne Lui and two with Kimbee Chan (also known as Chan Hoi-wan). After marrying Kimbee Chan, they had a third child together.

In May 2007, Lau was among the initial seven private buyers of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

In 2009, he purchased a 7.03 carat blue diamond for his daughter Josephine at Sotheby's for $9.5 million; the gem was named the "Star of Josephine." Later in November 2015, Lau acquired two record-breaking diamonds for Josephine: a 16.08 carat pink diamond at Christie's for $28.5 million and a 12.03 carat blue diamond at Sotheby's for $48.4 million, renamed respectively as the "Sweet Josephine" and the "Blue Moon of Josephine."

On 7 December 2016, Lau married Kimbee Chan in Hong Kong. Due to serious health concerns in 2017, he transferred his controlling 75% stake in Chinese Estates to both his wife and son.

Legal issues

On 31 May 2012, Macau's Court of Final Appeal confirmed that Lau and Steven Lo were implicated in offering HK$20 million to Macau's former public works official Ao Man-long concerning bids for five land parcels near Macau International Airport. Both men faced charges of bribery and money laundering but denied wrongdoing; Lo explained that the HK$20 million represented an initial payment to construction company San Meng Fai.

On 14 March 2014, Macau's Court of First Instance convicted both Lau and Lo. Lau received a prison sentence of five years and three months but filed an appeal. On 19 July 2015, their sentences were upheld by the Court of Second Instance. However, Lau has evaded extradition and remains free since there is no extradition agreement between Macau and Hong Kong.