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Few people in Vancouver history have had the impact of Bob Lee.

He grew up in humble circumstances in Chinatown, but ascended to the top of the Vancouver business world with Wall Financial and Prospero Realty. Then he used his vision and business acumen to build UBC’s Properties Trust into a $1.7 billion endowment, expected to grow to $4 billion, to help fund the university in perpetuity.

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Lee died Wednesday at the age of 86. No cause of death has been announced, but he had cancer.

Robert Horne Lee was born in Vancouver on June 25, 1933,the sixth of seven children born to Ron Bick Lee and his wife King Choon.

Bick Lee founded the import/export company Foo Hung Co. Ltd. and was so highly regarded in Chinatown he was the unofficial bank for people from his native Taishan.

“All the people from the village who came to Vancouver trusted my father,” Bob Lee recalled in 2003.

“Any money they saved, they gave my dad the money. He was like a banker; they trusted him more than the bank. My dad would have a bank book, he’d mark down what you’d deposit and what you took out.”