Early life and escape from China
Born 1948 in impoverished Guangzhou, Guangdong, with family roots in nearby Shunde, Lai was educated to the level of fifth grade.
Smuggled to Hong Kong aboard a small boat at the age of 12, Lai worked as a child-laborer in a garment factory for a wage of $8 per month.
Founding of Giordano
Rising to the level of factory manager, Lai speculated his year-end bonus on Hong Kong stocks to raise enough cash to buy out the owners of a bankrupt garment factory, Comitex, in 1975 and began producing sweaters. Customers included J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, and other U.S. retailers.
Bringing innovations to Hong Kong such as rewarding sellers with financial incentives, he built the chain into an Asia-wide retailer. One of the most well-known clothing retailers in the Asia, Giordano claims more than 11,000 employees in 1,700 shops across 30 territories worldwide.
Transition to publishing
Lai has been an unrelenting advocate of democracy and high-profile critic of the People's Republic of China government. Moved by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Lai distributed Giordano T-shirts with portraits of student leaders and began publishing ''Next Magazine'', which combined tabloid sensationalism with hard-hitting political and business reporting. Despite Hong Kong's crowded and highly competitive market for publications, the magazine found almost instant success. He went on to found other magazines, including ''Sudden Weekly'', ''Eat & Travel Weekly'', ''Trading Express/Auto Express'' and the youth-oriented ''Easy Finder'' .
In 1995, as the Hong Kong handover approached, Lai founded Apple Daily, a newspaper start-up that he was forced to finance with $100 million of his own money due to investor fear of association with a prominent critic of the Beijing government. With a circulation rising quickly to 400,000 copies by 1997, the newspaper had the territory's second largest circulation, despite fierce competition against 60 other newspapers.
''Sudden Weekly'' and ''Next Magazine'' rank first and second in circulation for Hong Kong’s magazine market while ''Apple Daily'' is the No. 2 newspaper in Hong Kong.
Lai encourages a company culture of transparency and creativity without hierarchy. Employees are encouraged to tackle challenges through trial and error while assuming responsibility for their actions and sharing in profits from successful ventures.
In a 1994 newspaper column, he told Premier of the PRC Li Peng to "drop dead," and called the Communist Party of China, "a monopoly that charges a premium for lousy service". As a result, most of his publications remain banned in mainland China. China's government retaliated against Lai by starting a shut-down of Giordano shops, prompting him to sell out of the company he founded in order to save it.
Ahead of the record-breaking pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong of July 2003 that brought half a million people onto the streets, the cover of Next Magazine featured a photo-montage of the territory's embattled chief executive, Tung Chee-Hwa taking a pie in the face. The magazine urged readers to take to the streets while Apple Daily distributed stickers calling for Tung to resign.
In addition to promoting democracy, Lai's publication often ruffle feathers of fellow Hong Kong tycoons by exposing their personal foibles and relations with local government. Lai has frequently faced hostility from the many Beijing-backed tycoons, including attempts to force supplier boycotts of his companies and a lengthy battle to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that he sidestepped through a backdoor listing. Lai managed to list the company in 1999 by acquiring Paramount Publishing Group in October of that year.
Neither Bank of China nor any state-owned enterprise from mainland places ads in Next Media publications, while major Hong Kong property developers and a range of other top-line companies advertise only in competing publications. The offices of his publications have been vandalized and his house was firebombed in 1993. The against Lai increased his publicity, if not popularity.
Lai pioneered a reader-centric philosophy with paparazzi photographers in Hong Kong newspaper. His best-selling ''Next Magazine'' and ''Apple Daily'' newspaper, runs a contrasting mix of racy tabloid material and which attract a wide range of readers, many of whom are also critics.
Taiwan Publications
Lai launched Taiwan editions of ''Next Magazine'' in 2001 and ''Apple Daily'' in 2003, taking on heavily established rivals who made considerable effort to thwart him. Rival publishers pressed advertisers to boycott and distributors not to undertake home delivery. His Taiwan offices were vandalized on numerous occasions, but as the publications grew to have the largest readership in their category
Among Lai's heroes are Friedrich Hayek, John James Cowperthwaite and Milton Friedman, bronze busts of each stand in the entrance hall to Next Media.
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