Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest man, announced his retirement and will hand over the chairmanships of CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings to his elder son, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi. The two companies have telecom, container ports and real estate interests and a combined market capitalisation of USD81.7 billion.
His retirement symbolises end to an era when the road to China’s riches went through the onetime British colony.
Courted by China’s leaders in the years before and after the return of Hong Kong, Li had run into criticism in Beijing of late after a series of sales of his companies’ assets in mainland China as part of a restructuring of the businesses. This ran to speculation that his star had been fading in China’s leadership groups.
However, Li has been held up as a symbol of the entrepreneurial spirit of Hong Kong, who some called “Superman” for his deal-making acumen. With an estimated net worth of USD36 billion, Li is the richest man in Hong Kong and the 23rd richest man in the world.
His story began very humbly. He left mainland China with his family in the wartime chaos of 1940 and started a plastic flower business in Hong Kong in 1950 when he was 22 years old.
As his business made money he moved into property, building a fortune as real estate prices surged in the city. In 1979, with help from HSBC, he took control of Hutchison Whampoa, now CK Hutchison, making him the first Chinese to take over a British-backed conglomerate.
His expansion into mainland China stepped up after the late leader Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour in 1992 at the beginning of China’s opening up, with major investments including Yantian Port and the Beijing Oriental Plaza office, retail and hotel development in the capital. In early 2000, the group’s mainland investments amounted to HKD60 billion.
However in recent years, CK Asset has been trimming those assets, disposing of more than USD3.2 billion of commercial properties in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou between 2013 and 2015 as part of a sweeping restructuring of the business empire that also included switching its base of incorporation to the Cayman Islands from Hong Kong.
Li still has a close relationship with Beijing, and state leaders are known to maintain channels of communication with him, according to Hong Kong-based China watcher Lau Siu-kai, vice-chairman of The Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semi-official think tank.
Last summer, President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule, and during a meeting with about 200 business and political leaders, he shook Li’s hand.
Ip Kwok-him, a veteran pro-Beijing politician in Hong Kong and a local deputy to the National People’s Congress, said Li had played a significant role in China’s development, however he said he had heard state leaders were holding less meetings with tycoons in Hong Kong when they visited the city to avoid potential criticism that they were focusing only on rich people.to howasus ноутбуки
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