Hong Kong Central is home to countless financial institutions and top companies from all walks of life, who are at the heart of Hong Kong's wealth. The culture and values formed in Central have also profoundly affected the development of Hong Kong society.
8 Financial Street, Central is home to The Financial Centre (IFC) of Hong Kong. In 2003, the second phase of ifc, with a total of 88 floors and a height of 461.8 meters, was completed. In 2005, Four Seasons Place, a Four Seasons Hotel and Serviced Apartment located in ifc, was officially opened.
In the 16 years since its completion, both ifc and Four Seasons Hotel have become a gathering place for celebrities and mainland high-rollers in Hong Kong. Prior to the completion of the Kowloon International Trade Centre (ICC), where HHK Properties' independent development was, IFC Phase II was once the tallest building in Hong Kong. Today, it is still one of the most expensive office buildings in Hong Kong.
Lee Shau Kee, the godfather of Hong Kong real estate and founder of Henderson, is one of the driving forces behind ifc's planning, construction and operation.
"Not only do we want to achieve world-class standards at Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong and Four Seasons, but we also hope to be better than the best." At the opening ceremony of the Four Seasons Hotel in 2005, Lee Shau Kee said.
Compared with Li Ka-shing, the richest Chinese and the founder of the Department of Changhe, Lee Shau Kee is less well-known in the mainland, but his wealth is comparable to that of Li Ka-shing. In the past 70 years, Lee Shau Kee has single-handedly built a business empire of more than HK$500 billion.
On 28 May 2019, 91-year-old Lee Shau Kee officially stepped down as chairman and general manager after attending the annual general meeting of hexkey Land (0012.hk), which he founded himself. Two sons, Lee Ka Kit and Lee Ka Shing, became co-chairmen and general managers of his Henderson company, officially taking over his 500 billion business empire.
With the official retirement of Lee Shau Kee, the four major families of Hong Kong real estate, including Cheung Wo Department, Sun Hung Kai Properties and New World Group, have all completed their succession. The era of Hong Kong's "founding generation" is slowly coming to an end.
Single-handedly build an empire of 500 billion, comparable to Li Ka-shing
In 1928, in Guangdong Province, China, two baby boys were born, both of whom later became godfathers of the Chinese business community.
One is Li Ka-shing, the founder of the Changhe Department, who has been the richest man in China for many years, and the other is Lee Shau Kee, the founder of Henderson Land. The two belonged to the same dragon, and in the early years from Guangdong to Hong Kong, where they made their careers.
Unlike Li Ka-shing, who lost his father at an early age and lived a difficult life as a child, Lee Shau Kee was born in a wealthy family, and his father Lee Kai-fu ran a gold shop and a silver trumpet in Shunde, Guangdong Province, and Lee Shau Kee was the fourth oldest in his family, which was the reason why Hong Kongers later called him "Fourth Uncle".
At the age of 6, Lee Shau Kee studied the family business with his father. In 1948, at the age of 20, he took 1,000 yuan and went to Hong Kong alone, hoping to find a new world here.
"At that time, there was no place to stand, only to seek food and clothing, and then there was a car and a building to live in. We must use a normal mind, rely on ourselves to struggle, and exert our own energy. In an interview with Hong Kong media in the early years, Lee Shau Kee recalled the years when he arrived in Hong Kong at the beginning of the year.
When he first arrived in Hong Kong, Lee Shau Kee ran a gold shop and trading business in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. His fortunes reached a turning point in 1958. Lee Shau Kee and his two big business brothers, Kwok Tak Shing Shing and Fung King Hee, formed Wing Ye Enterprises to enter the Hong Kong real estate industry.
In the 1960s, Hong Kong's economy took off, and a prosperous economy promoted the prosperity of the real estate industry. At that time, Hong Kong's real estate industry was still dominated by the established British foreign firms, but such as the ship king Hui Aizhou and the patriotic businessman Fok Yingdong had already emerged among a number of Chinese-funded real estate companies.
During this period, after seeing the huge business opportunities, many businessmen switched to the real estate industry, and many of them later became important families controlling Hong Kong's wealth. Guo Desheng and Lee Shau Kee's Yongye Enterprise is one of them. In addition, people such as Hang Lung's Chan Tsang Hee, Ying Jun's Luo Yingshi and Li Ka-shing all devoted themselves to the real estate industry during this period.
Prism checked the historical data of the Hong Kong Real Estate Builders Association that year and found that it later became the Yongye Enterprise of the two major real estate families in Hong Kong, and the original company registration place was on the 3rd floor of No. 16 Stanley Street in Central. Old photos from that year show that both Guo and Li were directors of the Hong Kong Real Estate Developers Association at the time. Li Ka-shing, the richest man in China, is not yet on the list.
In 1963, in order to expand the scale of business, Guo Feng and Li and the three people closed Yongye Enterprises and founded Sun Hung Kai Enterprises, and since then their combination has been known as the "Three Swordsmen". Thirteen years later, in 1976, Lee Shau Kee set himself up and founded his flagship henderson land, Henderson Land, which was listed in Hong Kong in 1981 under the stock code 0012.hk.
In the 1970s, Li Ka-shing, Lee Shau Kee and New World founder Cheng Yu-tong successively cooperated to launch acquisitions of British-funded companies, and then joined forces to rescue the market during the Hong Kong stock market crash in 1987, and were later called "The New Three Swordsmen" by the market.
1996 was a highlight for Lee Shau Kee, the pre-handover Hong Kong real estate bubble that made Lee Shau Kee the richest man in Hong Kong with a value of US$12.7 billion. But then the Asian financial crisis came, and Lee Shau Kee's personal wealth shrank sharply. But for many years, they were also among the top richest people in Hong Kong.
Even when exiting Sun Hung Kai, Henderson Land Development and Sun Hung Kai are still closely related. Lee Shau Kee has been the Vice Chairman of Sun Hung Kai. The Landmark Hong Kong International Finance Centre, which stands in Central, Hong Kong, was built at a cost of more than HK$20 billion, led by Sun Hung Kai and Henderson Land Development.
In 2005, at the opening ceremony of Four Seasons Hotel and Four Seasons Place in Hong Kong, Lee Shau Kee said in his speech that the project is the world's top in terms of scale and quality, and it is also the most important and important construction project led by Henderson and Sun Hung Kai.
As Lee Shau Kee wished, it remains one of the most expensive office buildings in Hong Kong to this day, and ifc has become the flagship property of the entire Henderson System.
Henderson Land Properties' 2018 financial report disclosed that Henderson held an interest in IFC with a 40.77% interest and that total rental income in Hong Kong increased by 6% year-on-year to HK$7,141 million during the period, of which IFC contributed HK$2.1 billion.
Unlike Li Ka-shing's global, complex business empire, Lee Shau Kee devotes most of his energies to the real estate industry. In addition, his well-known companies include 0003.hk, 1083.hk, Ferry Hong Kong (0050.hk), Miramar Hotels (0071.hk) and Henderson Land Development (0097.hk).
Prism statistics show that as of 31 May 2019, the market value of the above six companies under the Lee Shau Kee family totaled HK$510.94 billion.
Low-key layout of mainland real estate and gas business
Although Lee Shau Kee has long been a godfather of Hong Kong's real estate industry who has created a huge business empire, he speaks slowly and logically, and he is sharp and introverted.
Such an easy-going personality has also made him a "wild" player in the Hong Kong business community. In addition to founding Sun Hung Kai with Guo Desheng and Feng Jingxi, Lee Shau Kee also joined hands with well-known Hong Kong businessmen such as Zheng Yutong and Hu Yingxiang in the early stage of reform and opening up to invest in the iconic China Hotel Guangzhou.
In addition, in the early 1990s, Lee Shau Kee also teamed up with Macau gambling kings Ho Hung Sun and Cheng Yu Tong to spend HK$1.49 billion to buy in Canada. In the development of projects in the mainland, Lee Shau Kee has also frequently cooperated with Hong Kong real estate companies such as Sun Hung Kai, New World and Wharf.
In 2015, the mainland media widely reported that Li Ka-shing had withdrawn his investment from the mainland. At that time, when Lee Shau Kee was asked by the Hong Kong media about this matter, he said: "Business people, people have their own ambitions, do not make other comments." ”
As one of the four major families in Hong Kong, Lee Shau Kee's popularity in the mainland is much lower than that of Li Ka-shing, who belongs to the same dragon. However, according to Prism's information, its business network in the Mainland is not small, mainly involving real estate, gas and telecommunications business.
Henderson Land's 2018 annual report disclosed that the company carried out real estate development and leasing business in eight provinces and cities in the mainland, including first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as second-tier cities such as Changsha, Chengdu and Dalian.
In FY2018, mainland property sales contributed HK$3,138 million in pretax profit to Henderson Land, accounting for nearly 47% of its total business sales profit. Mainland property leasing contributed HK$1,438 million in pre-tax profit, accounting for about 20% of the total pre-tax profit from property leasing.
In recent years, Henderson Land Has also sold a number of projects in the Mainland, including the sale of the Beijing Henderson Centre in 2016. In 2017, Henderson Land Development sold its projects in Guangzhou, Shenyang, Anshan and Dalian to Country Garden and R&F respectively. However, Lee Shau Kee's eldest son, Lee Ka Kit, has said that the project sold is a non-core project of the group, not a divestment.
According to the Henderson Land Development Annual Report, as of the end of 2018, the company had a land reserve of 32.04 million square meters in the mainland. At the same time, Henderson Land is also expanding its heavyweight landmarks in the mainland.
The annual report discloses that the company's Guangzhou Haizhu Plaza Xinghuan International Business Center under construction will be completed in 2019. Another, the 280-meter-high Shanghai Xuhui Riverside Xingyang West Bund Center, known as the "magnolia" by the people of Shanghai, is expected to be completed in 2021. When these two buildings are completed, they will significantly increase the income generated by the business rental.
On May 28, the same day that Lee announced his official retirement, Henderson acquired the Sunhe plot in Chaoyang, Beijing, for 3.02 billion yuan.
In its annual report, Henderson Land clearly stated: "The Group will continue to identify development projects in tier 1 and second tier cities with great economic growth potential to expand its land bank. At the same time, it will also strengthen cooperation with Mainland developers to promote business development. In addition, the Group actively seeks out potential plots in the core areas of major cities and develops them into commercial projects for long-term rent collection. ”
In addition to real estate, Lee Shau Kee's other important sector in the Mainland is gas, and he conducts business in the Mainland through Hong Kong-China Gas, a subsidiary of China Gas.
As early as 1994, China Gas began to invest in gas projects in the mainland, first entering south China and the Pearl River Delta region, and now it has expanded to central, southwest and northeast China.
In 2002, China Gas established the Hong Kong-China Investment Company in Shenzhen to manage these mainland projects. Up to now, Ganghua Gas has set up gas enterprises in 131 cities in the mainland, covering more than 27 million customers, selling 23 billion cubic meters of gas, and the total length of the gas supply network has exceeded 108,000 kilometers.
"[We] were optimistic about the mainland market as early as the early 1990s, entering the Greater Bay Area in 1994 and investing in city gas projects in Guangzhou and Zhongshan in Guangdong Province. To date, gas companies with more than 20 projects in the region have diversified their businesses, covering sewage treatment, gas station projects, pipe and fittings manufacturing, and telecommunications and information technology in addition to their urban gas business, to cater for the daily needs of the people in the Greater Bay Area. Chen Yongjian, a director of The China Gas Company, said in a public statement recently.
In addition, Henderson Land Development's annual report discloses that HRC Gas is also developing telecommunications business in Hong Kong and the Mainland, providing network connectivity, data center and cloud services to customers such as network service providers, operators and large enterprises.
Henderson's property distribution scheme became a mystery, and three generations quietly took over
In 2019, in the Forbes Global Rich list, Lee Shau Kee was worth HK$235.5 billion, ranking second in Hong Kong's richest people, behind Li Ka-shing.
On May 28 this year, Lee Shau Kee officially stepped down as Chairman and Managing Director of Henderson After the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Henderson Land And China Gas, and his two sons served as co-chairmen and general managers.
With the official retirement of Lee Shau Kee, the four major families of Hong Kong real estate have completed the baton. Among the four families, the earliest successor was the Kwok Tak Shing Family, who founded Sun Hung Kai with Lee Shau Kee, whose founder, Kwok Tak Shing Shing, died in 1990 and has since been in charge of Sun Hung Kai with three sons. But in the following years, the third son fell into a family dispute. The second son, Guo Bingjiang, was sentenced to five years in prison for bribing government officials and released from prison this year. Last year, before Guo Desheng's three sons could reconcile, the sudden death of the eldest son, Guo Bingxiang, was a stifling.
Li Ka-shing, who is the same age as Lee Shau Kee, resigned from all the posts of president and department last year after years of planning, and served as a senior consultant to the company, focusing on philanthropy. His eldest son, Li Zeju, took over the changhe department business as chairman and general manager, while the youngest son, Li Zekai, received tens of billions of cash. Together, the two sons took over the Li Ka Shing Foundation, the "third son" of Li Ka Shing, as chairman and vice chairman.
Unlike the above three major families, the New World Department founded by Zheng Yutong is now the third generation of official succession. Zheng Zhigang, the eldest son of Zheng Yutong's eldest son, Zheng Jiachun, is now the main speaker of the New World business. According to earlier media reports, after Zheng Yutong's death, his two sons and two daughters, 4 people jointly held the Zheng Yutong family fund.
Lee Shau Kee, the latest to announce his retirement, did not disclose details of the distribution of assets in detail. Lee Shau Kee's original match was his ex-wife Liu Huijuan, who was said by Hong Kong media to have participated in beauty pageants in his early years and had a good appearance, and then met Lee Shau Kee, and the two held a wedding ceremony at the Diners Club Hotel in Central in 1959. After marriage, the two had three daughters and two sons, namely the eldest daughter Li Peiwen, the second daughter Li Peiling, the third daughter Li Peiyi, as well as the eldest son Li Jiajie and the youngest son Li Jiacheng.
In the early days of marriage, coinciding with the early development of Sun Hung Kai, Liu Huijuan was the main inside, and Lee Shau Kee was outside. However, after Lee Shau Kee founded Henderson Land in 1976, Liu Huijuan also began to participate in the management of the company, due to disagreements over work, which eventually led to the breakdown of their marriage and divorce in 1985.
Unlike many of Hong Kong's older-generation richest people who married multiple wives in their lifetime, Lee Shau Kee did not remarry after divorce and did not have a close female partner around him. Liu Huijuan, on the other hand, went to Vancouver after her divorce to devote herself to Buddhist practice.
Lee Shau Kee is not secretive about his unhappy marriage, and in the 1997 issue of The Legend of Dr. Lee Shau Kee, Lee Shau Kee described his ex-wife as "aggressive, arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, and willful in his struggle for power." And the person involved in the transition, divorced for many years, can get today's results, I have quickly been relieved. ”
For years, walking in the spotlight were Lee Shau Kee's two sons. Lee Shau Kee's youngest son, Lee Ka Shing, is more high-profile than his brother, marrying the entertainer Xu Ziqi in 2006 and giving birth to his second son in 8 years after marriage, and the couple is active in social occasions in Hong Kong. Xu Ziqi, the daughter-in-law of the Li family, has become the traffic label of the entire family. The low-key eldest son, Li Jiajie, has an unknown marriage situation, and in 2010, he gave birth to 3 sons by a surrogate mother.
In addition to her two sons, Lee Shau Kee's eldest daughter Lee Pui Man serves as executive director of Henderson Properties, and the younger daughter Lee Pei Yee also works in the family company. The eldest son-in-law, Li Ning, has long served as an executive director of Henderson Development and Hong Kong Small Wheel Company. The second daughter, Li Peiling, is very low-key, and her husband, Cheng Kai Man, has been running a hotel business in Hong Kong for many years.
In addition to the second generation of the Lee Shau Kee family, the grandchildren born to his daughter have also tentatively joined the family business.
Since its opening last year, H Queen's in Central, Hong Kong, has become one of the city's most upscale gallery gatherings, driven by Lee King-eun, the niece born to Lee Shau Kee's eldest daughter. The post-90s Li family has three generations and is now the assistant general manager of the leasing department of Henderson Land. Lee Kyung-eun's sister, Lee Kyung-yee, is also involved, and the hart hall where the two sisters collaborate is located under h queen's. The duo also collaborated on an art workshop hart haus in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong.
Just after Lee Shau Kee announced his retirement. New news broke out from the Lee family that Lee, 27, will marry Jonathan Kwok, the nephew of Sun Hung Kai founder Kw Family, in September this year. The two giants of Guo and Li have achieved a marriage after 56 years of joint business. The wedding venue for a couple was at the Four Seasons Hotel, led by two families.
Today, the era of Hong Kong's "founding generation" is slowly coming to an end.