Bridgeway founder Edwin Lee carves niche role in Hong Kong street shop property market
Former investment banker has created HK’s first licensed fund management firm, focused on shops and retail property investment
Edwin Lee is the founder of Bridgeway Prime Shop Fund Management, the first Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong-licensed fund management firm focused exclusively on shop and retail property investment.
After two years as an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, Lee found hismself out of a job when initial public offerings sector came to a standstill after the terrorist attack of World Trade Centre in 2001. He then returned home to Hong Kong, and set up Bridgeway.
The firm quickly grew from a one-man band into one of Hong Kong’s leading business startup consulting companies, which mainly focus in building business and reselling them to other entrepreneurs, and had 300 staff.
It completed 1,110 business transactions and transformed 78 start-ups into ready to purchase businesses.
Then in July 2013, he restructured the firm into a solely retail property fund reducing his staff to just seven. He also invited his wife, Rita Pang, then the director and legal counsel at Citigroup, to join the new-look business, as co-founder and counsel to become the eighth employee.
After a two-year application process with the Securities and Future Commission, Lee’s Bridegeway Prime Shop Fund Management was given regulator approval – Hong Kong’s first licensed fund management firm, focused on shops and retail property investment.