was a Japanese

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

property developer and the head of EIE International Corp.

Early life

Harunori Takahashi came from a prominent family in western Japan, near

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, and was descended from a pre-war Prime Minister. His father Yoshiharu Takahashi saved EIE from bankruptcy in June 1975.

Career

Takahashi was head of the privately owned EIE International Corp, which at one time owned one trillion yen in real estate assets. In 1986, EIE acquired a 35% stake in

Regent Hotels & Resorts Regent Hotels & Resorts is a British luxury hospitality brand, founded by hotelier Robert H. Burns in 1970. After passing through different owners since foundation, it is currently jointly owned by IHG Hotels & Resorts and Formosa International Ho ...

. In 1989, Takahashi started building what was to become ''The Regent New York'' on 57th Street, designed by

I. M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners ( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...

. In a 1991 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' profile, he was compared to

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

, as a "brash" developer with a "hectic pace of property acquisitions", under pressure from banks and "struggling under $6 billion in shaky debt". At his peak, Takahashi owned Regent and Hyatt hotels across Asia, a floating hotel in Vietnam's

Ho Chi Minh City , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

, 50% of Australia's

Bond University Bond University is Australia's first private not-for-profit university and is located in Robina, a suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland. Since its founding on 15 May 1989, Bond University has primarily been a teaching-focused higher ed ...

Denarau Island Denarau Island () is a small private resort development on the western side of Viti Levu in the Republic of Fiji. The 2.55 km2 resort is reached via a short causeway over a creek and is located 5 km north west of the town Nadi and 10& ...

in Fiji, and was building a thousand-mile railway in Australia's. EIE sold Regent to

Four Seasons Hotels Four Seasons Hotels Limited, trading as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, is an international luxury hotel and resort company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Four Seasons currently operates more than 100 hotels and resorts worldwide.Da ...

in 1992 and the New York hotel eventually opened as the

Four Seasons Hotel New York Four Seasons Hotel New York is a luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened in 1993. The luxury hotel stopped booking paying guests in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, instead offering free housing for medical ...

Personal life

He was married to Aki Takahashi, and they had two children, Ichiro Takahashi and Makiko Komai. Takahashi died on 18 July 2005, aged 59, following a brain haemorrhage in a hospital in Tokyo.

References

1940s births 2005 deaths Japanese billionaires {{Japan-business-bio-stub