Li Ka-shing, whose life journey from humble beginnings as a wartime refugee who used to sweep factory floors in Hong Kong for a living to Asia’s biggest business fortunes became the epitome of entrepreneurship that inspired generations of Hongkongers, has announced his retirement.
Li Ka-shing, whose life journey from humble beginnings as a wartime refugee who used to sweep factory floors in Hong Kong for a living to Asia’s biggest business fortunes became the epitome of entrepreneurship that inspired generations of Hongkongers, has announced his retirement after seven decades at the pinnacle of one of the world’s largest corporate conglomerates and amassing one of Asia’s biggest fortunes from building skyscrapers to selling soap bars.
Starting with some local property investments that cemented his wealth, Li built a business empire that included retail, energy, ports, telecommunications, media and biotechnology companies worldwide. Overseas, Li-controlled companies are among the biggest foreign investors in the U. K.
“I have decided to step down as chairman of the company and retire from the position of executive director at the forthcoming annual general meeting of the company,” Li said in filings for CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday.
“I am grateful to have been able to create value for shareholders all these years, and serve society,” Li said. “This has been my greatest honour. I thank everybody for their love and support.”
«Looking back all these years, it’s my honor to have founded Cheung Kong and to have served society,» Li told a packed room of journalists in Hong Kong on Friday. It’s been «my greatest honor,» he said.
As Bloomberg notes, the 89-year-old chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and CK Asset Holdings Ltd. will stay an adviser to the group after stepping down in May.
Li personifies some of the conflicts that came from the region’s rise: Dubbed «Superman» by local media for his business acumen, he symbolizes inequality in a city with one of the most lopsided wealth demographics on the planet. He is a property developer who has won admiration for his entrepreneurial skills and a manager with companies so dominant that they often stifle smaller competition.
He also is an uber-capitalist who courted communist leaders. A major figure in China’s emergence as an economic superpower, Li is the most prominent among a generation of Hong Kong tycoons who charged across the border after Deng Xiaoping and his successors promoted economic reforms. His investments in the mainland span across industries ranging from energy to retail and infrastructure.
His elder son Victor, 53, will take over a conglomerate that touches the lives — literally — of practically everyone in Hong Kong — the family’s Power Assets Holdings Ltd. generates their electricity and ParknShop supermarkets sell their groceries. The group also operates mobile-phone stores and Superdrug and Savers in the U.
