Li Ka-shing

▪ 2001

      Topping Asiaweek magazine's 2000 list of Asia's 50 most powerful people was Li Ka-shing, a billionaire who took “old economy” money and parlayed it into a “new economy” juggernaut. Nicknamed “Superman” by the regional media because of his uncanny ability to pull off a succession of profitable deals, Li inspired loyalty among stockholders, who had come to expect every Li-inspired venture to be a sure thing. Although he began building his fortune in Hong Kong, Li had substantial holdings worldwide, and his ties with top leaders in his native China gave him an inside track in gaining a foothold in that country's burgeoning markets.

      Li was born into a poor family on June 13, 1928, in Chaozhou, Guangdong province, China. Japanese invasions forced the family to leave the mainland for Hong Kong in 1940. Without much formal education, Li began his career in Hong Kong as a salesman and eventually formed a company, Cheung Kong, that manufactured plastics. Business boomed throughout the 1950s when Cheung Kong began making artificial flowers and exporting them to the U.S. As the firm prospered, Li began to acquire property at a rate that, by the late 1970s, made him Hong Kong's leading private developer.

      In 1979 he became the first Chinese businessman to buy one of the large British-owned local trading companies when he purchased a controlling interest in Hutchison Whampoa. Under his leadership, Hutchison emerged as the world's largest independent operator of ports; the company also bought out Husky Oil in Canada and set up mobile-phone operations in Australia, Europe, and the U.S. Among Li's other ventures was an Internet service, Tom.com, that proved highly popular in China.

      Characteristic of Li's approach to business was the way Hutchison made money in the mobile-phone business in the U.K. After getting a foot in the door by investing in a money-losing phone operation called Rabbit, Hutchison launched a service called Orange that it later sold for $14.6 billion. Shortly thereafter, Hutchison jumped back into the telecom business in the U.K., acquiring a license for a wireless Internet service. For Li, making money involved identifying lucrative technologies before they became lucrative, investing in them, and then selling when the properties hit peak value.

      Li's ties with high-ranking officials in China and Hong Kong benefitted his business but prompted criticism. After his son was kidnapped in 1996, the culprit was caught by mainland police and executed, which led many to speculate that Li had gone above local Hong Kong police and sought help at the highest levels of China's government. Li's attempt to influence the political climate in Hong Kong by threatening to cancel a major development also resulted in a backlash. In the U.S. some members of Congress worried that Li's ties to Chinese leaders made his ownership of ports at both ends of the Panama Canal a security risk.

Anthony G. Craine

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