Lai Chee Ying
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- This is a Chinese name; the family name is 黎 (Li).
Lai Chee Ying (Chinese: 黎智英; Cantonese IPA: [lɐɪ11 tsɪ33 jɪŋ55], Jyutping: lai4 zi3 jing1; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Zhìyīng, born in 1948 in Guangzhou, Guangdong, with family roots in nearby Shunde, English name Jimmy Lai, is the flamboyant and outspoken founder of Next Media, a Hong Kong publisher best known for Apple Daily.
Born in poverty-stricken Guangzhou, at the age of 12 Lai was smuggled to Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil War. Starting as a child-laborer in a garment factory working for the wage of $8 per month, he worked his way up to the factory manager.
Speculating on Hong Kong stocks with his year-end bonus, Lai built enough cash to found the Giordano clothes chain. Taking the name from a New York Pizzeria and the model from The Gap, he competed against the larger and better funded retailers such as Espirit and Benetton. Bringing innovations to Hong Kong such as rewarding sellers with financial incentives, he built the chain into an Asia-wide retailer.
An unrelenting advocate of democracy, Lai has been a high profile and controversial critic of the People's Republic of China government. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Lai distributed Giordano T-shirts with portraits of student leaders and founded Next Magazine, which combined tabloid sensationalism with hard-hitting political and business reporting.
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 shutting down Giordano shops, prompting him to sell out of the company he founded in order to save its business in mainland China.
Ahead of the July 2003 record-breaking pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that brought half a million people on 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.
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 academic articles which attract a wide range of readers, many of whom are also critics.
In 2000, Lai launched Taiwan editions of Apple Daily and Next Magazine, with heavily established rivals making considerable effort to thwart him. Rival publishers pressed advertisers to boycott and distributors not to undertake home delivery.
In building Taiwan's most popular newspaper, Apple Daily, and magazine, Next Magazine, Lai's racy publications have had a great impact on the island's hitherto staid media culture.
During the late 1990s, Lai started the Internet-based grocery and electronics home delivery service, adMart, which incurred large losses before he shut it down.
Lai now lives in Hong Kong.
