Photo Credit 58 BCBusiness OCTOBER 2015
ritish Columbia doesn't
have the legacy of long-lived
family businesses like Upper
Canada does with its Westons,
Bronfmans and Thomsons.
It's a young province, after
all, with a correspondingly
young business community. A
notable exception to the rule
is the Louie family—which,
since Hok Yat (H.Y.) Louie
opened his ¡rst grocery store
in Vancouver's Chinatown in 1903, has
become a dominant presence in B.C.'s
retail scene, with 32 IGA grocery stores
and 78 London Drugs outlets (51 of them
in B.C.).
The Louie family has expanded
in recent years into aviation, with its
London Air Services (bought in 1999,
it's now up for sale), and hospitality,
through its luxury Sonora Resort. But
as Brandt Louie, H.Y. Louie Company's
72-year-old president and
CEO—and H.Y.'s
grandson—puts it, a focus on the cus-
tomer is what unites the businesses.
"We believe that we are very good at
understanding the needs of our custom-
ers and giving them what they expect—
whether it's the resort, or the airline, or
the supermarkets or drugstores," Louie
tells me from London Drugs' corporate
boardroom in Richmond in late July,
fresh from a ¡shing trip to Labrador. "At
the end of day, we have built up a lot of
trust with our customers. They trust us
to always have their interests at heart."
Getting to this pinnacle of trust—H.Y.
Louie is now B.C.'s second-largest pri-
vate company, after the Jim Pattison
Group, with estimated 2014 reve-
nues just shy of $5 billion—was
never a sure thing. When
H.Y. arrived in B.C. in 1896
from a small village near
Guangzhou, B.C. was,
to put it mildly, not the
most hospitable place
for Chinese entrepre-
neurs. He worked in
a variety of manual
labour jobs from
vegetable farms to
sawmills before
opening that ¡rst store, and through his
decades as a retailer and then whole-
saler, H.Y. encountered racism at every
turn, from competitors, customers and
neighbours. It was in this challenging
work environment that Tong Louie,
H.Y.'s second-eldest son and
ultimate successor, cut
his teeth in the family
business.
In the postwar
years, the com-
pany's fortunes
improved alongside
the economy's. In
1955, the Louies
were approached
to become the B.C.
franchiser for Inde-
pendent Grocers
E O Y
F a m i l y B u s i n e s s A w a r d f o r E x c e l l e n c e
T H E L O U I E F A M I L Y
The Louie Family—through its extensive chain of grocery and
drugstores—has built a reputation as one of B.C.'s most customer-
centric operations. This year, they're being honoured with the
EY Family Business Award of Excellence
by Matt O'Grady
Family Affair
B
