Harunori Takahashi (高橋 治則, Takahashi Harunori, 1945/46 - 18 July 2005) was a Japanese billionaire property developer and the head of EIE International Corp.

Harunori Takahashi
Born1945/46
Died18 July 2005
NationalityJapanese
Occupationproperty developer
SpouseAki Takahashi
Children2
Four Seasons Hotel New York

Early life

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Harunori Takahashi came from a prominent family in western Japan, near Nagasaki, and was descended from a pre-war Prime Minister.[1] His father Yoshiharu Takahashi saved EIE from bankruptcy in June 1975.[2]

Career

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Takahashi was head of the privately owned EIE International Corp, which at one time owned one trillion yen in real estate assets.[3]

In 1986, EIE acquired a 35% stake in Regent Hotels & Resorts. In 1989, Takahashi started building what was to become The Regent New York on 57th Street, designed by I. M. Pei. In a 1991 New York Times profile,[1] he was compared to Donald Trump, as a "brash" developer with a "hectic pace of property acquisitions", under pressure from banks and "struggling under $6 billion in shaky debt".[1]

At his peak, Takahashi owned Regent and Hyatt hotels across Asia, a floating hotel in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, 50% of Australia's Bond University, Denarau Island in Fiji, and was building a thousand-mile railway in Australia's.[1]

EIE sold Regent to Four Seasons Hotels in 1992 and the New York hotel eventually opened as the Four Seasons Hotel New York.

Personal life

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He was married to Aki Takahashi, and they had two children, Ichiro Takahashi and Makiko Komai.[4]

Takahashi died on 18 July 2005, aged 59, following a brain haemorrhage in a hospital in Tokyo.[3]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Sterngold, James (12 February 1991). "A Japanese Symbol of Excess". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  2. ^ Raymond Frederick Watters; T. G. McGee; Ginny Sullivan (1997). Asia-Pacific: New Geographies of the Pacific Rim. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-85065-321-9. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  3. ^ a b "Real estate mogul Takahashi dies". 20 July 2005. Retrieved 26 August 2018 – via Japan Times Online.
  4. ^ "Bond University honours its Founding Fathers with bronze sculptures".