Li Ka-shing

Li Ka-shing is a Hong Kong entrepreneur and the founder of Cheung Kong (01113.HK). The Hong Kong property sector has long spoken of the “four great families”: the Li Ka-shing family of Cheung Kong, the Lee Shau Kee family of Henderson Land, the Kwok Tak-seng family of SHKP and the Cheng Yu-tung family of New World Development. According to a February 2019 Caixin report, these four families had by then entered the stage of second- or even third-generation management, yet still held the lifeline of Hong Kong’s property market; in terms of land reserves alone, the four together held more than 100 million square feet (about 9.2903 million square metres) of farmland, equivalent to a quarter of the total land area of all public and private housing in Hong Kong at the time.

According to an article published in China Philanthropist in 2013, Li Ka-shing, together with Lee Shau Kee, Henry Fok Ying-tung, Chan Tseng-hsi and others of a generation of new wealth, created Hong Kong’s post-war commercial prosperity. In 1995, Li Ka-shing and a total of 20 Hong Kong business figures, including Cheng Yu-tung, Run Run Shaw, Tsang Hin-chi and Ronnie C. Chan, initiated the founding of the Better Hong Kong Foundation, each contributing HK$5 million.

According to a Caixin profile interview in March 2018, Li Ka-shing left school at 12 to work in order to make a living, but never put down his books, teaching himself by buying second-hand books; he once followed methods from books to nurse his father, who had tuberculosis, and to treat himself until he recovered. He later went from labourer to accountant, doubling his wages, because he ghost-wrote letters and understood the abacus and accounting. He then decided to give up accounting and switch to sales; in his first year his results were seven times higher than those of the second-best salesman, and he took the initiative to tell his boss that he would accept only the same year-end bonus as the runner-up. At 19 he decided to strike out on his own; his former boss, who thought highly of him, wanted to invest but was turned down and instead lent him money, and from then on he served as his own general manager. According to the interview, before the age of 30 Li Ka-shing had already earned “all the money he would need in his life”.

The same interview also recounted that among Hong Kong tycoons of his tier, Li Ka-shing was the only one to have truly achieved a global footprint, with businesses spanning more than 50 countries; when Hong Kong property prices were high, diversification meant that his nominal assets were at times lower than those of tycoons focused solely on Hong Kong property. The interview said that at that time more than 50% of the assets under Cheung Kong were rent-generating assets, including real estate, ports, telecommunications and various infrastructure, bringing stable cash flow, and that this foundation of the family business was handed to his elder son Victor Li Tzar-kuoi to manage; his younger son Richard Li Tzar-kai received cash support to develop independently. The interview also mentioned that the Li Ka Shing Foundation focuses on philanthropy and indirectly holds a number of venture investments. The interview was published as Li Ka-shing approached 90 and his retirement plan was being completed.