Sir Li Ka-shing GBM KBE JP (Chinese: 李嘉誠; born 13 June 1928) is a Hong Kong billionaire business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the senior advisor for CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings, after he retired from the Chairman of the Board in May 2018; through it, he is a port investor, developer, and operator of the largest health and beauty retailer in Asia and Europe. As of July 2023, Li is the 33rd richest person in the world, with an estimated net wealth of US$37.7 billion.
Li invests in a wide array of industries, including transportation, real estate, financial services, retail, and energy and utilities. His conglomerate company Cheung Kong Holdings invests in many sectors of the Hong Kong economy and made up 4% of the aggregate market capitalisation of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Forbes Magazine and the Forbes family honoured Li Ka-shing with the first ever Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award on 5 September 2006, in Singapore. In spite of his wealth, Li has cultivated a reputation for leading a frugal no-frills lifestyle, and is known to wear simple black dress shoes and an inexpensive Seiko wristwatch. He lived in the same house for decades, in what has now become one of the most expensive districts in Hong Kong, Deep Water Bay in Hong Kong Island. Li is also a philanthropist, donating billions of dollars to charity and other various philanthropic causes, and owning the second largest private foundation in the world after Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2019 Forbes put Li in the list of most generous philanthropists outside of the US
The majority of Li’s wealth consists of stakes in publicly traded companies, including real estate developer CK Asset, Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, Canadian oil and gas producer Cenovus Energy and San Jose-based Zoom Video Communications. He reorganized his companies in 2015, dismantling the web of businesses that had owned stakes in one another.
Li has 30% of CK Hutchison, with assets ranging from ports and infrastructure to mobile-phone networks, and 34% of CK Asset, which owns his real estate assets. Other publicly traded holdings include Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong and CK Infrastructure. The shares are held through several holding companies and trusts registered in Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Panama, according to filings to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Li is also attributed with the shares held by son Victor Li to reflect his status as founder.
Li owns a 6.7% stake in Zoom Video Communications, according to its February 2023 filing. In 2020, he transferred 1.6% of his Zoom stake to others, including his son Richard Li, and the value of those shares has been removed from his net worth calculation.
The value of his cash investments is based on these proceeds, as well as insider transactions, taxes, market performance, charitable giving and funding provided to his son, Richard.
The billionaire announced a promise in 2006 that he would give one-third of his fortune to his charitable foundation, which he refers to as his “third son.” The analysis discounts received dividends by one-third to reflect this commitment.
Hans Leung, a spokesman for CK Hutchison Holdings, confirmed Li’s publicly-traded stakes and declined to provide further comment on his net worth.
Biography
Li’s family fled to Hong Kong from China in 1940 to escape Japanese invaders. At age 14, after his father died, Li had to work as a factory apprentice to support his family. He established a factory that made plastic flowers in 1950, then began investing in real estate.
He bought property in Hong Kong after rioting incited by the Cultural Revolution depressed prices in 1967 (he did so again after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989). Twelve years later, about one out of every seven private residences in the city were developed by Li’s flagship company, Cheung Kong.
Li won control of British trading house Hutchison Whampoa in 1979, negotiating with Hongkong and Shanghai Bank to buy its 22% stake in Hutchison for less than half its book value. At the time, Hutchison owned docks, repair shipyards, property and retail stores in Hong Kong and Guangdong. Li spent the next decade expanding Hutchison’s core businesses outside of Hong Kong, building Hutchison into one of the world’s two largest private port operators. Its retail businesses operate over 12,000 stores spread globally among a dozen chains. It also provides mobile network service to about 90 million customers worldwide.
In 1987, he bought a controlling stake in Husky Energy, then a small Canadian oil and gas driller that had slashed operations when oil dropped below $10 a barrel. The company was bought by Cenovus Energy Inc. In 2020.
Nicknamed “Superman” for his investing prowess, Li accurately predicted in 2007 that China’s stock market bubble would burst. And in early 2009, he foresaw the start of a rally in Hong Kong home prices. Values soared 70% through June 2011. In May 2012, he said his oldest son Victor would succeed him as chairman of Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa, while younger son Richard would receive Li’s full support and funding equal to several times the amount of assets Richard already owns independently to acquire new businesses.
In 2015, the billionaire completed the biggest reorganization of his corporate empire with the creation of Cheung Kong Property Holdings — now CK Asset Holdings — to hold his real estate assets, and CK Hutchison Holdings, which owns ports, retailers and mobile-phone networks. A September 2015 press release stated that he’s transferred one-third of his assets to the Li Ka Shing Foundation.
He stepped down as head of his business empire in May 2018 at the age of 89, and handed responsibilities to his oldest son, Victor. He remains a senior adviser to the conglomerate.
Milestones
- 1928 Li Ka-shing is born in Chaozhou, Guangdong province.
- 1940 Family flees to Hong Kong during Sino-Japanese war in 1930s.
- 1950 Founds Cheung Kong Plastics at age 22.
- 1972 Cheung Kong Holdings sells shares in a public offering.
- 1979 Acquires control of Hutchison Whampoa.
- 1987 Acquires 43 percent stake in Canada’s Husky Energy.
- 1996 Pays ransom for release of kidnapped son Victor.
- 2014 Meets with China’s President Xi before start of Occupy Hong Kong protest.
- 2015 Li completes the biggest reorganization of his empire.
- 2017 Buys Sydney-based gas and electricity distributor Duet Group for $5.5 billion.
