LI KA SHING

 

Chairman, Cheung Kong Holdings; chairman, Hutchison Whampoa

 

Nationality: Chinese.

 

Born: June 13, 1928, in Chaozhou, Guangdong, China.

 

Family: Son of Li Yunjing (primary school head); married Amy Li Ching Yuiet-ming (founding director of Cheung Kong Holdings; deceased 1990); children: two.

 

Career: 1944–1949, plastic-goods salesman; Cheung Kong Industries, 1950–1971, chairman; Cheung Kong Holdings, 1971–, chairman; Hutchinson Whampoa, 1979–, chairman.

 

Awards: Grand Officer of the Order Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Panama, 1982; Commander in the Leopold Order, Belgium, 1986; Knight of the British Empire, United Kingdom, 2000; Grand Bauhinia Medal, Hong Kong, 2001; honorary Doctorates, University of Cambridge, University of Calgary, Beijing University, and five universities in Hong Kong.

Address: Cheung Kong Holdings, Cheung Kong Center, 7th Floor, 2 Queen's Road, Central Hong Kong; Hutchison Whampoa, Hutchison House, 22nd Floor, 10 Harcourt Road, Hong Kong; http://www.ckh.com.hk; http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com.

 

The wealthiest man in Asia, Li Ka-shing was nicknamed "Superman" in Hong Kong, where his global empire was based. His political and financial influence, as derived from his diverse holdings, which included real estate, ports, telecommunications, finance, infrastructure, and biotechnology, led AsiaWeek to call him "the most powerful man in Asia" in 2000. Born in mainland China, Li came to Hong Kong as a poor immigrant in 1940 and launched his career making and exporting plastic flowers. He lived a relatively modest lifestyle and contributed millions of dollars to various philanthropic interests.

 

POVERTY AND AMBITION

 

Although his father was the head of a primary school in Guangdong province, Li had little opportunity for formal education. He was 12 years old in 1940 when his family fled the Japanese invasion of China. Within three years of their arrival in Hong Kong, his father had died, and the teenage Li was helping to support the family by selling plastic watchbands and belts.

 

Li proved to be a capable salesman and started his own plastics factory in Hong Kong in 1950. By 1958 he had a flourishing business manufacturing plastic flowers and was ready to expand. He named the firm Cheung Kong Industries, after the Cheung Kong River—also known as the Yangtze—the longest river in China. The name was reportedly an allusion to both the river's many tributaries and the need for business alliances.