Liu Xiuhua

Joseph Lau Luen-hung, born in 1951 in Hong Kong and of Chaozhou, Guangdong ancestry, studied at a Canadian university where he earned a bachelor’s degree. After returning to Hong Kong in 1974, he joined his family’s ceiling-fan manufacturing business. In the mid-to-late 1980s, he began investing in the Hong Kong stock market, gradually developing into a diversified conglomerate with four listed companies, with businesses spanning real estate, media, construction, and manufacturing. His wealth has been disclosed in wealth rankings over the years.

In terms of wealth rankings, Forbes’ 2012 Hong Kong’s Rich List listed his wealth at US$6.5 billion, ranking him No. 5. Forbes’ 2007 Global Billionaires List showed his wealth at US$2.1 billion, worldwide ranking No. 458.

Family and children: Lau Luen-hung and Gambit have a daughter, Liu Xiuhua, born in October 2008. On May 12, 2009, at Sotheby’s in Geneva, he sold a 7.03-carat flawless blue diamond, reportedly a gift for his daughter, and named the diamond after her English name Josephine, which was subsequently publicly introduced under the name “Star of Josephine.” The diamond set two records at the Geneva Sotheby’s auction and was later mounted into a ring. Public information about Liu Xiuhua also includes reports that she carries handbags in public, valued at tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars.