Updates March 17 story to add statement from Hong Kong leader in paragraph 5

By Clare Jim

HONG KONG, March 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong property magnate Lee Shau Kee, one of the city's richest men, died on Monday at the age of 97, Henderson Land, the group that he founded, said in a statement.

Nicknamed "Uncle Four" as he was the fourth oldest among his siblings, Lee was born into a middle-class family which owned gold and silver shops in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

He moved to Hong Kong when he was 20 years old and founded his own property firm, Henderson Land 0012.HK, in 1976. He remained as chairman until his retirement in May 2019.

The company is jointly controlled by his two sons, Peter and Martin Lee. Lee Shau Kee had a wealth estimated at $30 billion by Forbes before he died.

"Dr Lee was an outstanding business leader and entrepreneur who had made significant contributions to Hong Kong's economic development, as well as the city's prosperity and stability. He was also a highly respected philanthropist," Hong Kong leader John Lee said in a statement.

Like the city's other tycoon families, Lee's empire went beyond real estate, with holdings in companies ranging from energy to retail to transport. And also like his peers, Lee's success had partly ridden on a good relationship with former Chinese leaders.

As part of a delegation of Hong Kong tycoons, Lee visited China to meet former Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and once sat next to the late former President Jiang Zemin, photos on his personal website showed.

ENJOYED THE SPOTLIGHT

Unlike newer generations of Hong Kong's ultra-wealthy, who rarely speak in public, the first generation enjoyed the spotlight and were outspoken on many issues.

Lee urged young people not to marry early if they did not have a stable income, saying it was difficult to build a career after the expenses of raising children.

Other than "Uncle Four," Lee was known by other names, including "Hong Kong's Warren Buffett."

"Buying real estate stocks is more profitable than doing real estate business," he said as his fortune quadrupled within a few years before the stock market crashed in 2008.

Before the financial crisis, he was active in equity investments in the 2000s, including in Chinese state-owned enterprises such as Bank of China and PetroChina, and had spoken about his experience in public.

But after his investments took a hit and he received letters of complaint from some retail investors who had followed his example, he jokingly said he's only a "fake god of stocks".

Lee was a philanthropist, having donated billions of dollars in both Hong Kong and mainland China. In 2018, he kept his promise that he would donate HK$1 billion ($128.70 million) to charities when the city's blue-chip Hang Seng Index reached 30,000 points.

He leaves behind two sons and three daughters.

($1 = 7.7699 Hong Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Clare Jim in Hong Kong and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Bernadette Baum, Sharon Singleton and Lincoln Feast.)

((yukun.zhang@thomsonreuters.com;))