Tan Sri Frank Tsao Wen-king was a Chinese-born entrepreneur who established shipping and textiles businesses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
18 Facts About Frank Tsao
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Frank Tsao founded International Maritime Carriers in Hong Kong, before moving it to Singapore in the early 1990s.
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Frank Tsao helped build Singapore into an international shipping hub, and co-founded MISC and Unithai, the national shipping companies of Malaysia and Thailand, respectively, as well as Suntec City in Singapore.
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Frank Tsao Wen-king was born in 1925 in Shanghai, into a moderately wealthy business family.
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Frank Tsao's grandfather started a shipping company on the Huangpu River.
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Frank Tsao's mother, Tsao Ng Yu-shun, was an heiress who inherited a major stake of the China National Development Bank.
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Frank Tsao studied economics at the prestigious St John's University, Shanghai, and took over the family business when his father "lost interest" in it.
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Frank Tsao later recalled the period as "a matter of survival", when he worked desperately to salvage the family business.
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In 1949, Frank Tsao co-founded the Great Southern Steamship Company by purchasing an old ship from Singapore.
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Frank Tsao's business took off by trading with the PRC, shipping beans, chemicals, and steel between China, Hong Kong, and Japan.
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In 1958, Frank Tsao founded Textile Corporation of Malaya, the first textile company in Malaysia, together with other Shanghainese industrialists in Hong Kong.
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Frank Tsao later expanded his venture by establishing Malayan Weaving Mills and Malacca Textiles, and developed a close friendship with Mahathir Mohamad, the longest-serving prime minister of Malaysia.
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In 1968, Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok sought Frank Tsao's help with setting up Malaysia's first national shipping company, Malaysia International Shipping Corporation, and Frank Tsao became the company's co-founder.
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Frank Tsao helped build Singapore into an international shipping hub and moved the headquarters of IMC Group to Singapore in the early 1990s.
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Frank Tsao regularly donated to the Frank Tsao Foundation of Singapore, which he established with his mother in 1993 to help the elderly.
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Frank Tsao cofounded the Centre for Maritime Studies at the National University of Singapore, and supported maritime education at many Chinese universities, including Dalian Maritime University, Dalian University of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Maritime University, Tongji University, Tsinghua University, as well as Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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Frank Tsao was married to Maisie Chow Frank Tsao for seven decades until her death in 2014.
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On 12 August 2019, Frank Tsao died in Singapore at the age of 94 from kidney failure.