Tan Sri Loke Wan Tho (; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Lu̍k Yun-thàu; 14 June 1915 – 20 June 1964) was a Malaysian-Singaporean business magnate, ornithologist, and photographer. He was the founder of Cathay Organisation in Singapore and Malaysia, and Motion Picture and General Investments Limited (MP&GI) in Hong Kong. Early life and education Born in Kuala Lumpur on 14 June 1915, Loke Wan Tho was the ninth child of Loke Yew, an ethnic Chinese businessman of Cantonese descent, and his wife of mixed Hokkien-Hakka ancestry named Loke Cheng Kim. Loke was only 2 years old when his father died. His early education was at Victoria Institution, Kuala Lumpur, a school set up by the British for Chinese boys which counted his father as one of its founders. In 1929, due to his delicate health, Loke with his two younger sisters was taken by his mother to Chillon College in Montreux, Switzerland. He was the Swiss County (Vaud) long jump champion in 1932. Loke then went to King's College, Cambridge where he obtained an Honour's degree in English Literature and History in 1936. For a brief period after that, he was at the London School of Economics. Loke returned to Malaya just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Biography In February 1942, Loke boarded a ship, Nora Moller, to leave Malaya to escape the Japanese but the ship was sank by a Japanese aircraft in the Strait of Bangka. He was rescued from the sea, temporarily blinded and severely burned. Later he was hospitalised in Batavia (Jakarta) and then evacuated to India. He survived his injuries and after arriving in Bombay, he was introduced to the Indian ornithologist Dr. Salim Ali, who eventually became a lifetime friend and a frequent companion on many major expeditions. Loke credited Salim who inspired his passion and wrote in his book A Company of Birds : "Under the guidance of an expert (Salim Ali) my interest in birds which hitherto had been but of a dilettante kind blossomed into a deeper passion." Later in 2014, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai published a coffee table book on Lokes collection of beautiful bird photographs as "Loke Wan Tho’s Birds" as a tribute to the man. A huge collection of his bird photographs is kept in the library of the Bombay Natural History Society at Mumbai. Business career Although Loke had inherited a vast fortune of tin mines, plantations