Yan Chengkun

Yan Chengkun was an entrepreneur and politician from Hong Kong. He was the founder and, until 1998, owner of the China Motor Corporation, the colony’s major bus company. After attending Shanghai’s St. John’s University Yan took over the family’s rickshaw business in 1920. In 1923, he established his first bus company and 10 years later won the license for the public bus service in Hong Kong. During the peak period in the 1980s, the company serviced more than 100 bus routes. Yan also brought the double-decker bus to the island. The increasing dissatisfaction with the management led to a disentanglement of parts of the business.

After Yan Chengkun handed over the company to his children when he was well into his 90s real estate became its core business. In addition to his successful business activities, Yan played an important role in political and social affairs. He served as a non-official member of the Legislative and Executive Councils. In 1961 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In sports administration, Yan was re-elected as the chairman and president of the South China Sports Association before and after World War II for a total of eight terms. Loving football since an early age, he later founded a football team composed of employees of his bus company. With the South China Sports Association dominating soccer in China, Yan accompanied the Chinese national team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics as official coach. Although he withdrew from sports administration after World War II, Yan Chengkun was later appointed honorary president of the Chinese Sports Association and of the Hong Kong Chinese Football Association.