Li Ka Shing
May 28, 2011 – 7:00 pm
Li Ka Shing, East Asia’s wealthiest man is also Hong Kong’s billionaire and the richest man residing in China. Born on the 13th of June in the year 1928, in Chiu Chow, the south eastern coastal city, he started a plastic toy industry in the 1950’s and in the year 2005, Li Ka Shing’s personal worth was estimated to be $13 billion in US dollars as noted by the Forbes business magazine.
Li Ka Shing owns many businesses today ranging from shipping, financial services, telecommunications and real estate. Li learnt to take care of his family at a very early age of 12 when his father passed away when the family fled the war in his home town. Li then started working in a plastics factory and dropped out of school to take care of his family.
Li Ka Shing was a hard and diligent worker often working for 16 hours a day. It was his dedication to his work that rewarded him well. He soon started “Cheong Kong Industries” his own factory manufacturing plastic goods. His company grew at a really fast pace and was soon listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the year 1972, around 20-25 years after it was set up.
He soon started acquiring new entities such as “Hongkong Electrics Limited” & “Hutchison Whampoa Limited” through his parent company, Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited.
Li Ka Shing currently holds stakes in companies in more than forty nations today and in businesses as diverse as shipping container terminals, retailing, electricity, real estate and others. It is therefore no surprise to know that Li’s company accounts for more than a tenth of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
It can be said that what you are depends on what you want to be. Although Li Ka Shing’s father was a head of a small primary school and Li had no formal education. He started his own company in just ten years after he arrived to Hong Kong. Today, Li Ka Shing is a widow and a father to two sons Richard and Victor. Both of whom play key roles in their father’s business interests.
Li Ka Shing is also a generous philanthropist. He set up the “Li Ka Shing Foundation” in the year 1981 to create a healthy “culture of living”. To date, the foundation has contributed more than $500 million in US dollars to charity in the fields of education and health. Most personal accounts of Li describe him as a frugal and unpretentious person living a modest life which reflects on his Chinese values.