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The richest man’s sense of smell is still sharp.

1

Signal

There are new developments from the top bosses.

A few days ago, Li Ka-shing's eldest son and chairman of the Cheung Kong Group, Li Zeju, publicly disclosed the progress of his family office for the first time:

“The Li family has been making various investments in Hong Kong and will institutionalise the establishment of a family office in Hong Kong, which will be managed by friendly colleagues and family members who have worked together for many years.”

One stone can cause a thousand ripples.According to information, this will also be the first wealthy Hong Kong family to set up a family office in Hong Kong.

For the super-rich, family offices are almost a standard. The concept originated from the great "Domus" (family head) in ancient Rome and the great "Domo" (chief steward) in the Middle Ages.

It can be understood that the rich have found a "super steward" for their family to help the family with asset allocation, legal services, charity, family governance, family education, etc.

The Li family really needs such a "steward". Li Ka-shing, 96 years old this year, has been the richest man in Hong Kong for 21 consecutive years. In February 2024, Li Ka-shing topped the 2024 Forbes China Hong Kong Rich List with a net worth of US$36.2 billion. He is still as powerful as ever.

No matter how wealthy a person is, he still has to consider the issue of inheritance.In fact, Li Ka-shing established a family trust fund many years ago. He not only put the shares of listed companies into the family trust, but also planned the asset distribution in advance.

From the outside world's perspective, with the public appearance of Li Ka-shing's eldest granddaughter, the baton of the Li Ka-shing family has come to the third generation. Today, the establishment of the family office also marks that the wealth management of the Li Ka-shing family has entered a new stage.

This is also a major trend. Research data shows that by the end of 2023, there will be more than 2,700 single family offices in Hong Kong, which is nearly twice that of Singapore.

The more important information is,The establishment of the family office in Hong Kong means that the Li Ka-shing family will further bet on Hong Kong.

This makes people curious, what signal did Li Chaoren smell this time?

2

return

This is not Li Ka-shing's first big move.

Back in June 2023, some netizens claimed that Li Ka-shing visited West Lake with his friends and drank expensive Longjing tea. Although this news has not been confirmed by Cheung Kong Holdings, it undoubtedly sends a positive signal.

Looking at it over a long period of time, the signal has actually appeared long ago.

In October 2022, Cheung Kong Group acquired a residential land in the New Territories of Hong Kong, China for HK$4.601 billion.

In December of the same year, Cheung Kong Group won the bid for the Queen's Road West/Yin Ku Li project of the Urban Renewal Authority of Hong Kong, China with a bid amount of HK$1.161 billion.

At that time, according to media estimates,In the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Group invested HK$14.9 billion (about RMB 13.3 billion) in land hoarding in Hong Kong.

Looking further ahead, in May 2022, Hutchison Whampoa, owned by Li Ka-shing, also participated in the bidding for the Baiyun Airport Avenue plot in Baiyun District, Guangzhou.

In January 2020, Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited announced that it would form a joint venture with Jilin Electric Power Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the State Power Investment Corporation, to explore power and energy cooperation plans. Li Ka-shing expressed his sincerity of 1 billion yuan.

In addition, according to a report by Times Finance, Li Ka-shing and his son had "bought" Cheung Kong Holdings in bulk, increasing their holdings at least 80 times in 2020, spending more than HK$5 billion, which was real money.

It is not difficult to find that looking at Li Ka-shing's actions in recent years, there is a very clear clue:

return.

3

wait

The wind direction has quietly changed.

Back in 2015, the think tank "Liaowang Think Tank" under Xinhua News Agency published an article with a very sensational title:

"Don't Let Li Ka-shing Run Away".

Public opinion surged, and Li Ka-shing's image in the mainland suddenly changed. Behind this change is the migration of Li Ka-shing's asset layout. China Fund News once made an incomplete statistics that Li Ka-shing's assets sold in the mainland and Hong Kong have exceeded 250 billion yuan at least. There are also reports thatAs early as the end of 2018, the proportion of assets of Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Group in Asia had dropped to 10%.

Behind the big sale, Li Ka-shing was enthusiastically betting on Europe at that time.

According to statistics at the time, Li Ka-shing's investment in the UK had exceeded HK$400 billion. About a quarter of the UK's electricity distribution market, nearly 30% of the natural gas supply market, nearly 7% of the water supply market, over 40% of the telecommunications market, nearly a third of the UK's docks, and over 500,000 square meters of land resources - all belonged to the Li family.

The financial report also shows thatBy the end of 2018, the total assets of Li Ka-shing's companies in Europe had reached HK$673.69 billion, accounting for 54.67% of total assets.

At that time, people once thought that Li Ka-shing was going to buy all of Europe.

This "clearance-style" asset shuffling once caused Li Ka-shing to be involved in the controversy of "running away". But from a business perspective, Li Ka-shing's behavior was pure:Go wherever there is higher profit.

But plans can never keep up with changes, and even the shrewd Li Chaoren cannot avoid this.

In 2020, the pandemic ravaged the world, and the economy of Britain, where Li Ka-shing has a large stake, almost stagnated. In 2019, Li Ka-shing spent HK$43 billion to acquire the largest chain of bars in the UK. Before he could get his money back, most of the bars were facing the dilemma of not being able to operate normally throughout the year.

In 2020, Li Ka-shing's company's net profit plummeted by more than 50%. Due to the decline in stock prices, Li Ka-shing's personal wealth loss reached 100 billion, and he even fell from the throne of Hong Kong's richest man, which he had held for 21 consecutive years.

For this reason, Li Ka-shing made timely adjustments and turned his attention to China again.In addition to frequently buying assets, Li Ka-shing is also withdrawing funds and waiting for opportunities to buy at the bottom.

Last August, Cheung Kong Holdings' new building "Qinhai Station II" announced its first price list, with a discounted price of about HK$148,700 per square meter, which is 30% cheaper than the surrounding second-hand houses.

This explosive operation directly drove Hong Kong people crazy. On the first day of the official sale of the property, all 626 houses were snapped up, and more than 10,000 people came to the property sales center to participate in the lottery.

The explosion is still going on. The latest news is that Li Ka-shing is selling properties in Dongguan at a 50% discount. Although it is not a large-scale price reduction, it is enough to cause a sensation.

Faced with this series of operations, we may still have to sigh:

Older gingers are more spicy!