Prague - Czech-Canadian shoe tycoon Tomas J Bata died suddenly in Toronto on Monday at the age of 93, the Czech-based Tomas Bata Foundation said.

Bata had presided over a worldwide family footwear empire for several decades following World War II.

The iconic Czechoslovak pre-war business was founded by his father in Bata's native town of Zlin in 1894.

The Bata factories in the then Czechoslovakia were seized by the state after World War II, but the shoe-making clan managed to revive the business elsewhere.