Background and career
Allan Zeman (Chinese: 盛智文; born 18 July 1949) is a Hong Kong business magnate.
Allan Zeman was born into a Jewish family in Regensburg, West Germany, and was raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where his mother worked in a hospital. When Zeman was seven years old, his father died. He started working at the age of ten. He dropped out of college, and by the age of nineteen, while working for a lingerie company, he had earned his first US$1 million. He made his first fortune by importing clothes from Hong Kong. He frequently travelled to Hong Kong for work in the 1970s, and eventually moved there in 1975. Zeman is married to Charmaine Zeman; they have two children: Jonathan Zeman and Marisa Zeman-McConnell. He speaks English, French and some Cantonese, and is a teetotaler.
In 1975, Zeman founded Colby International Group to source clothing in China and export it to Canada. In late 2000, by now a much larger and diversified company, Colby was sold to Li & Fung Ltd., a major competitor. In the early 1980s, Zeman felt that Hong Kong had no western restaurant that suited his needs, so in 1983 he opened California Restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, a narrow street in Central, Hong Kong. He bought the entire block in 1984 and thus launched his career as both an entertainment operator and property developer. In 2000, Zeman sold Colby International for $280 million to Li & Feng. Through Lan Kwai Fong Holdings Ltd, of which he is chairman, he drove the development of Lan Kwai Fong to be one of the most important bar and night life districts in Hong Kong. He is said to own 65 percent of the district's properties. Meanwhile, as chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Concepts Holdings Ltd., he controls a number of restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong including Aria Italian, BACI Pizza & Trattoria, Porterhouse Seafood & Steak, FUMI, Kyoto Joe and Tokio Joe
In July 2003, Zeman was appointed as chairman of Ocean Park Hong Kong by the city's Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa. At the time, the park's business was threatened by the incoming Hong Kong Disneyland, the SARS epidemic, and the city's low tourism numbers. As a result, Zeman had initially declined, thinking Tung was "out of his mind", but later took the job after repeated requests by Tung. Zeman was personally involved in the park's promotion, for which he frequently put on costumes like pumpkins and jellyfish, and once did a helicopter landing dressed as an Eskimo.
"I was there as an icon for the park, dressing up in all these silly costumes that I didn’t enjoy. You can’t always enjoy it. It was free advertising for the park, and we didn’t have the money that Disney had." In June 2014, Zeman stepped down from chairmanship after 11 years. He revealed that he wished to continue but was forced out by the government. He believes that the decision was due to a government guideline that limited positions on statutory bodies to six-year terms. During Zeman's chairmanship, the number of visitors to Ocean Park rose from 2.95 million in 2003 to 7.73 million in 2013. The park also went from a HK$4 million deficit in 2003 to a HK$127.2 million surplus. He was dubbed "Hong Kong's Mouse Killer" in 2007 by Forbes magazine for holding off the challenge from Hong Kong Disneyland.
In 2001, Zeman was appointed a Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong. Zeman was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2004 and the Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2011.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
