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Li Ka-shing denies he’s pulling out of China
Print Edition
Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing has denied he is pulling out of China after recent sales of assets were taken as indicating a lack of confidence in the nation’s economy.
The Hong Kong tycoon told yesterday’s Southern Weekly newspaper that interpreting the sales as a divestment from the country was “a big joke.”
This year, his conglomerate, made up of Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa, invested HK$13 billion (US$1.6 billion) in infrastructure abroad while the money it spent on a container terminal project in Hong Kong alone amounted to HK$4 billion, the 85-year-old Li said.
Recent stake or property sales were just normal business practice under the principle of selling high and buying low, he said.
“Sometimes after selling our business, we will increase investment there when a new opportunity comes up,” he said. “Any pull-out due to bad management, low investment returns or dim prospects is just a pure business decision.
“There is never a divestment, and business sales in the future will have nothing to do with it. If I really want to pull out, the easiest way is for my companies to redomicile. But I won’t do that. Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa will never leave Hong Kong,” Li said.
Most of the assets he sold recently were properties. The deals included an office tower in Shanghai’s financial hub of Lujiazui, a shopping plaza in Guangzhou and two houses in Hong Kong.
Wang Shi, chairman of China’s largest residential property developer China Vanke, said previously that Li’s moves rang alarm bells.
Li said prices in Hong Kong were already quite high, with no healthy trend in sight, and real estate prices on the mainland had been rising. With the government stepping up efforts to cool the property market, companies with property investments are at risk, he said.
Li said he ran his companies with prudence.
The liability ratio of Cheung Kong is just 4 percent while that of Hutchison Whampoa is 21 percent, quite low for such a large company, he said.
“My life principle is not to earn the last penny. One needs to be careful,” he said.
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