In early April, Li Ka-shing's second son, Li Zekai, known as the "Little Superman", rose to more than 30 billion yuan with the successful listing of Southeast Asian technology unicorn GoTo, and there was media speculation at the time that the next stop of the Li Ka-shing family might be Southeast Asia.
A recent report by the Vietnamese media "The Saigon Times" seems to further corroborate this conjecture.
(Source: Xinbao)
According to the media report, Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Industrial Group and Japan's ORIX Corporation Group, through the Vietnamese local partner Van Thinh Phat, held a meeting with Pan Wenmai, mayor of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Municipal People's Government, to discuss investment in Ho Chi Minh City.
Join hands with Japan's largest non-bank financial group to lock in Vietnam
The investment institutions of the two parties participating in this meeting are not small.
(The second from the left is Zhao Guoxiong, president of Cheung Shih Group, and the fourth from the right is Pan Wenmai, mayor of Ho Chi Minh Municipal People's Government Source: VN Land Notes)
Founded by Li Ka-shing, Cheung Kong Industrial ("Cheung Shing") Group has operations around the world and sits on $80 billion in assets. According to the 2021 annual report released by Changshi Group, its total revenue last year was HK$83.241 billion, an increase of 16.70% year-on-year.
According to media reports, ChangShi Group positioned Ho Chi Minh City as a strategic center of finance and technology, and promised to introduce high-end real estate projects, from residential, office, commercial center, entertainment and other businesses.
Justin Chiu, president of Cheung Kong Industrial Group, said at the meeting that their investment decisions start from two prerequisites: one is the support of the government, and the other is to have a valuable local partner, a platform that has a deep understanding of the local area and the ability to accumulate and connect with the world market.
Zhao Guoxiong also said that in the past few days, they and local partner Wan Shengfa have visited the project in Ho Chi Minh City and expressed confidence in investing here.
On the other hand, ORIX Group, founded in 1964, is Japan's largest non-bank financial institution and the largest integrated financial services group, operating insurance, trust banking, securities, consumer finance, investment banking, real estate finance and other businesses in 27 countries and regions in the world, with total assets of 85.2 billion US dollars.
Li Hao, director of the China office of orix group's East Asia business headquarters, also said at the meeting that backed by the project and commercial center of partner Wanshengfa in Ho Chi Minh City, ORIX's investment will soon be realized.
"Li Chaoren" secretly laid out Southeast Asia
In fact, in addition to infrastructure investment projects such as the United Kingdom and Canada, Southeast Asia has also been under the layout of Long-term Reality, but previously concentrated on the most developed Singapore market.
According to public information, Changshi has developed 6 projects in Singapore, including Singapore's famous Marina Bay Financial Centre, One Raffles Quay, a commercial development project located in Singapore's commercial center, and a luxury residence, The Vision. In addition, two property projects are under development, including The Perfect Ten, an apartment project located in the prime area of Central Bukit Timah, in the heart of Singapore's District 10.
(Singapore One Raffles Quay Source: Office Freedom)
In recent years, the Li Ka Shing family has also secretly laid out the Southeast Asian market through its other platforms. In 2020, Horizons Ventures, a subsidiary of Li Ka-shing, invested in three Indonesian startups – Indonesia's fast-growing investment platform Ajaib, coffee chain Kopi Kenangan and capsule hotel operator Bobobox, in partnership with Southeast Asian venture capital fund Alpha JWC. Together, the three companies have received more than $210 million (about 1.3 billion yuan) in financing.
Founded in 2006, Victoria Harbour Investment was an early investor in technology giants such as Facebook and Spotify, with an estimated total asset of 101.9 billion yuan, helmed by Li Ka-shing's "confidant" Zhou Kaixuan. Zhou Kaixuan himself once told the media that Victoria Harbour Investment will focus on the Southeast Asian market in the future, especially the Indonesian market.
Frances Kang, director of Victoria Harbour Investment, also told the media that Victoria Harbour Investment used to look for investment opportunities in the United States, Europe and Israel, but now they have noticed business opportunities in Indonesia and southeast Asian markets, believing that "the place is at a very critical moment, and the fund will invest more money in the region". She also said victoria harbour investment has formed a new team to study the market.
"Little Super" has also entered Southeast Asia
Compared with Li Ka-shing, "Little Super" Li Zekai seems to have always been more optimistic about the Southeast Asian market, and frequently sells here.
Last year, Stephen Group ("Hyphen"), a financial technology company in which Li Zekai participated, reported that it was in talks with Provident, an SPAC company set up by Indonesia's billionaires, to go public through mergers and acquisitions. Hyphen has a total of 8 sub-brands, with a focus on the Southeast Asian market, with business layouts in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, with a total of more than 60 million users and more than 1,500 products.
Late last year, Bridgetown 2 Holdings, an SPAC company founded by Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of PayPal, acquired PropertyGuru, a leading real estate technology company in Southeast Asia. Founded in 2007, PropertyGuru has received investment from the world's leading private equity KKR, covering Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, matching buyers and tenants with sellers and landlords, as well as providing digital marketing services to real estate agents and developers.
Earlier this year, FWD Insurance, which officially applied for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, also "heavily positioned" Southeast Asia.
According to the prospectus, FWD's business is concentrated in Asia, especially southeast Asian markets, with operations in 10 markets including Hong Kong (and Macau), Thailand (and Cambodia), Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, focusing on these insurance markets with the fastest growing global growth, increasing population but insufficient insurance coverage.
Since its inception in 2013, FWD has grown rapidly, and the prospectus shows that the company's annualized new premiums will reach $1.446 billion in 2021, and the value of new business will reach $686 million. Among them, the Southeast Asian market is the main source of growth drivers, and in 2021, the Southeast Asian market will contribute more than 50% of the value of new business to FWS.
Just last week, The initial public offering of GoTo, Indonesia's largest Internet technology company, became the fifth largest IPO in the world this year and the third largest IPO in Indonesia to date. Behind GoTo, there is also the figure of Li Zekai, whose equity in GoTo has reached 900 million US dollars.
This article originated from China Fund News