Zuo Hui, the founder and chairman of China's largest real estate platform KE Holdings (NYSE: BEKE), passed away on May 20, 2021, due to unexpected worsening of illness, the company announced Thursday.
KE Holdings did not announce what illness caused Zuo's death, though the Wuhan Morning Post quoted a company insider as saying that Zuo died of lung cancer.
Zuo was born in 1971. As the controlling shareholder of KE Holdings, Zuo formed the company in 2018.
Seventeen years earlier he had founded Beijing Homelink Real Estate, also known as Beijing Lianjia, which grew to become one of the country's largest offline property brokerages.
Zuo then consolidated Beijing Lianjia with other agencies including Century 21 China Real Estate and Zhonghuan Real Estate to form KE Holdings, which is better known as Beike Zhaofang.
KE Holdings reported its first-quarter revenue of RMB 20.7 billion, up 190.7% year-on-year, according to its earnings report released earlier today. The company reported a first-quarter net income of RMB 1.059 billion and an adjusted net income of RMB 1.502 billion.
KE Holdings shares went down by 10 percent in pre-market trading on Thursday.
