Chow Tai Fook

History

The Chow Tai Fook group began with the Chow Tai Fook jewellery store, founded by Chow Chi-yuen in 1929 in Guangzhou, China. The store shifted its business to Portuguese Macau in 1940 (some say 1931) and then to British Hong Kong after the breakout of the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The group returned to mainland China after the market reforms of the 1980s, notably as New World Department Store China and former listed company New World China Land.

Cheng Yu-tung took over the business empire from his father-in-law Chow Chi-yuen in 1956. In the 1960s, Chow's son Stephen Chow Shue-tong (周樹堂), an architect, helped found Chow Tai Fook group's real estate division, which in 1972 would be listed as New World Development. After the outbreak of the 1967 leftist riots, Stephen Chow emigrated to Canada., among several sons of Chow who left Hong Kong. Cheng built the group into a diversified empire, with interests in jewellery retailing, real estate, hotels, transportation, public utilities and other businesses. In 1961, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery built a residential building at 265–275 Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon. The building was also named after Tai Fook (大福唐樓). The group, via Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, also made private investments in real estate and hotels.

One of the main holding companies of the group, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited, was incorporated on 10 August 1966 in British Hong Kong, while the flagship listed company New World Development Company Ltd was incorporated in 1970 in Hong Kong. The jewellery store chain was incorporated as Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Company Ltd in 1961 in British Hong Kong, and a new holding company for the jewellery division was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and listed in the Hong Kong SAR as Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd in 2011.

As of 2018, the group also consists of two more parent companies in the group structure, namely Chow Tai Fook Capital Limited and its subsidiary Chow Tai Fook (Holding) Limited. They were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Chow Tai Fook (Holding) is the parent company of Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group.