The Men Who Rule Hong Kong: Li Ka-shing

Posted: 15 Feb 2012

THE BIG FOUR FAMILIESA closer look at Hong Kong’s landed aristocracy

Li Ka-shing
Age: 83
Made His Name In: Plastic flowers [and if you believe that you should get your head examined]

Major Holdings: Cheung Kong, Hutchison; Park n Shop (and Taste, and Great); Watsons; Fortress; HK Electric; CK Life Sciences; 3; several dozen electricity/gas/water operators in the UK, Australia and Canada; ports in 26 countries; 3G phones in Europe; Cheung Kong Center, The Center; most Hong Kong hotels with ‘Harbour’ in the name; Oriental Plaza (Beijing).

The official rags-to-riches legend begins with a young man arriving in Hong Kong with his head shaven to save money on haircuts. After starting with a loan from his family in the early 1950s, Li’s first business venture was a factory making cheap combs. He upgraded to the hugely profitable plastic flowers business, and cleverly got into real estate after building a factory for his own company. Famously, he boldly bought cut-price property from panicky sellers during the turmoil of the late 1960s and went on to challenge Hong Kong Land’s dominance in Central while snapping up several venerable British Hong Kong firms, plus HK Electric, plus ports. Li’s conglomerate today has a truly global reach.

What do we know about his family affairs? This is hard to say. As is the case with tycoons the world over, it’s difficult to qualify what goes on behind the curtains because Li could easily crush any journalist, or publication, which sticks its nose where it doesn’t belong. What seems certain is that number-one son Victor has been groomed to take over and looks the part, though a rumour of Li Senior’s illness a few years back caused shares in the companies to fall. Number-two son Richard, who started with a gift from his father, runs PCCW and was handed a goldmine when the Hong Kong government gave him the right to build the luxury residential development Cyberport. Time will tell as to which son is the true heir apparent.