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Li Ka-shing

The Li family in this undated fi le photo. SD-Agencies

‘Superman’ retires: HK’s iconic billionaire to step down

his empire, in 1950. The name “Cheung Kong” was inspired by the Yangtze River, where countless streams and rivers con-verge, to refl ect the businessman’s belief in synergy and the power of combined efforts.

That factory, with 1,000 square feet (93 square meters) of space, oper-ated around-the-clock, made a profi t from its fi rst year of operation, and the young Li slept in a storage room in one of the many stories about his personal thrift.

He has always been a voracious reader and attributes much of his success to his ability to learn independently. For instance, he completed Cheung Kong’s accounting books in the company’s fi rst year himself with no accounting experi-ence — he simply taught himself from textbooks.

The company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 1972 and expanded into an empire spanning more than 50 countries with 300,000 employees in fi elds including real estate, telecommu-nications, shipping and retail.

Li controlled one of the world’s larg-est operators of container terminals, Hutchison Port, and Asia’s biggest health and beauty retailer, Watsons.

All of Li’s businesses were con-solidated into two major companies in 2015: CK Hutchison for non-property ventures and CK Asset Holdings for property undertakings. The two have a total market capitalization of more than US$80 billion.

Along the way, he led raids on rivals and turned his sights to overseas expansion in a way

that few of his local rivals ever did.

Also unlike his rivals, including fellow hongs Swire Pacifi c and Jardine Mathe-son, he proved adept at something else: selling assets.

“Li Ka-shing’s real genius, to me, is not necessarily in the assets he acquired, but his ability to sell them at the right time,” said Jonathan Galligan, head of Asia gaming and conglomerates research at CLSA, the brokerage. “Look at anything he sold and, plus or minus a year, its hard to say he didn’t pick the top — that’s a tremendous skill.”

One of Li’s best-known deals in this respect was the 1999 sale of its U.K. telecom unit, Orange, to Germany’s Mannesmann at the height of a market boom.

When Vodafone bought Man-nesmann soon after, the subsequent forced disposal of Orange to France Telecom produced a second windfall for the Li empire, which netted US$21 billion in profi ts from the two deals.

Today, the assets still held by Li through his fl agship CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. include the biggest con-tainer port operator in the world, Cana-dian oil giant Husky, one of Europe’s leading telecom operators as well as a collection of U.K. businesses that saw him awarded a knighthood by the Queen in 2000.

Li was one of the fi rst big investors in Facebook and Spotify and more recently invested in a startup that aims to replace eggs with a plant substitute. Li only invests in technology that he sees as “disruptive” and will make his holdings more cutting-edge. This is consistent with his constant innovation in his businesses.

LI KA-SHING’S rise from penniless immigrant in the 1940s to billionaire tycoon is a consummate success story.

A factory apprentice when he was 13, Li, who announced his retirement March 16, was called “Superman” in Hong Kong for his work ethic and business success.

Li, turning 90 in July, has been Hong Kong’s wealthiest individual for two decades, according to Forbes. For many years, he was also Asia’s wealthiest.

Li has used his business acumen, as well as a habit of personally investing alongside his companies, to amass a fortune estimated by Forbes at US$35.3 billion, making him the world’s 23rd richest man.

“I’ve been working for a long time, too long,” a relaxed and sprightly Li said after announcing he would step down.

His annual news conferences are broadcast live by local TV stations while he holds forth on varied topics as report-ers hang on his every word.

While Hong Kong’s adoration of the billionaire and his rags-to-riches story has waned somewhat in recent years, he is stepping aside from one of Asia’s most outward-looking empires.

Born in 1928 in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, Li’s family moved to Hong Kong in the 1940s.

Li was forced to leave school at a young age following his father’s death and took his fi rst job in a plastics factory at the age of 13 — an experience that helped shape Li into the savvy businessman he would become.

“The most terrible experience of my childhood was witnessing my father’s suffering and ultimately dying of TB. I too was infected,” Li said in an interview with Forbes in 2010.

“The burden of poverty and this bitter taste of helplessness and isolation sort of branded on my heart forever the ques-tions that still drive me. Is it possible to reshape one’s destiny? Is it possible to minimize challenges through lessen-ing complexities? And is it possible to enhance chances for success through meticulous planning?” the tycoon explained to the magazine.

Shrouded in myth and fi lled with apocryphal anecdotes and tales of family misfortune, Li’s name has become syn-onymous with against-the-odds success by the dint of hard work.

Li, who dropped out of school at a young age and never received a univer-sity degree, has regularly emphasized the hard work.

Through a career spanning 78 years, Li built fortunes fi rst in plastics and prop-erty before joining the fi rst wave of top-tier Chinese tycoons in the Asian fi nancial

center with the 1979 purchase of Hutchison Whampoa, a venerable British “hong” or trading house.

Li started his own plas-tics company, Cheung Kong Industries, the foundation of

Even after stepping down, Li will remain a senior adviser for his sprawling business empire.

As for family, Li suffered a personal trag-edy when his wife, Chong Yuet-ming, died of an aneurysm at the age of 55 in 1990. Now Li will hand over the keys to his empire to his elder son Victor Li, who, unlike younger son Richard, keeps a low public profi le.

“I’ve got confi dence in him,” Li said, adding that the two had spent 33 years working together. “Victor is OK.”

Li said in 2012 that he planned to have Victor take over but had avoided specifi cs for years.

Victor joined Cheung Kong in 1985 in his 20s and steadily rose through the ranks, taking on various positions at his father’s empire throughout the years alongside Richard, who later branched off on his own. The father has said he will provide cash to help his younger son Richard develop his own businesses.

In 1996, Victor made headlines when he was kidnapped. The kidnapper later fl ed to the mainland, only to be apprehended and executed there.

Li came under rare attack a few years ago after selling off some assets on the mainland. Li, however, has denied turning his back on the mainland and says he is confi dent in the mainland economy.

Recent years saw Li backing new and rising start-ups in the region. He was an early investor in Razer, a video game hard-ware maker, who went on to launch an ini-tial public offering that was one of the most sought-after in Hong Kong.

The self-made billionaire has been referred to as Asia’s answer to Warren Buffett, and credited for having a hand in transforming Hong Kong into the buzzing fi nancial and business hub it is today.

Much like Buffett, Li remained a modest man and dressed plainly despite his wealth and success. An anecdote often used to depict Buffett’s frugality is his retro Samsung fl ip phone, which he hasn’t given up for a smartphone. For Li, a similar tale — for a long time — involved his wristwatch.

Li wore a simple US$50 Seiko watch for decades. He only in recent years switched to a US$500 solar-powered Citizen Eco-Drive watch for its convenience and battery life. “I don’t need to be careful,” unlike when wearing timepieces costing hundreds of thousands, he told Bloomberg in an inter-view in 2016.

Also like Buffett, Li is an active philan-thropist. The Li Ka Shing Foundation, established in 1980, has given grants and scholarships to causes including education, health care and humanitarian.

Li has announced that he would be retir-ing to focus on his charitable foundation, which he has called his “third son.” He has pledged to give away one-third of his fortune.

“I will don a new battle suit and put all my efforts into the work of my (charity) foundation, especially on the aspects of medicine and education.”

(SD-Agencies)A younger Li