Recently, Bloomberg released the world's richest 25 families, these families with a total wealth of up to $1.4 trillion.
Among them, the Walton family, which founded Walmart, won the list for the second time, ranking first in the world with a wealth of 191 billion US dollars. The Mars family, the Koch family, the Saudi royal family and other wealth also exceeded $100 billion.
The Ferrero family is ranked 25th with a fortune of $29.8 billion. In other words, as long as the family wealth reaches $29.8 billion, it will be on the list.
However, it is surprising that there is only one Chinese family in this list, not the li ka-shing family that everyone is familiar with, but the Lee Shau Kee family, the founder of Henderson Land. With a total wealth value of $38 billion, it ranks 12th in the world.
It is worth noting that Lee Shau Kee's second son is named Lee Ka Shing. Therefore, it can be said that although the Li Ka-shing family was unexpectedly defeated, the Li Ka-shing family successfully ranked among the top 25.
So the question is, why can Lee Shau Kee force Li Ka-shing to become one of the richest families in the world?
1
Lee Shau Kee started relatively high
Lee Shau Kee was born in February 1928 in Shunde, Guangdong Province. He is only 5 months older than His Fellow Guangdong compatriot Li Ka-shing, and both are 92 years old this year.
However, there is a certain difference between the two on the basis of family situation, and when Lee Shau Kee was born, he already had two stores in his home. These two stores are not ordinary small shops, but a gold shop, a silver number, mainly engaged in gold and foreign exchange business.
Don't forget, this was almost 100 years ago. Therefore, Lee Shau Kee's family conditions are significantly better than those of Li Ka-shing, who came from a teacher's family.
Coincidentally, both families attach great importance to education, except that Lee Shau Kee received a private school education, which is somewhat similar to the current aristocratic private school, while Li Ka-shing received a public education.
As the saying goes: "Dragons give birth to dragons, phoenixes give birth to phoenixes, and rats are born to punch holes." ”
Because the family had a shop, Lee Shau Kee began to follow his father in business at the age of 6. At first, his parents were a little worried about whether he could cope with customers and guys in the store, but he was very talented and had a lot of emotional intelligence.
Once, when he discovered that the goldsmiths in the shop were stealing gold (a very common phenomenon in the industry), he did not directly stop it, but went home and told his father.
His father actually didn't have much to do with this matter, after all, if the management was too strict, the gold shop master might jump to another family. Therefore, the practice of turning a blind eye is usually chosen, as long as it is not too excessive.
The young Lee Shau Kee was very eager to prevent this situation, so he began to learn the gold casting technology himself, and by the time he was 12 years old, he had fully mastered the entire door of the gold casting industry.
In the process of Lee Shau Kee's learning of gold casting technology, he did not give up the importance of knowledge at all. His father even invited Mr. Liang Huimin, a professor of literature at Sun Yat-sen University, to be his teacher when he was 10 years old.
At the same time, Li Ka-shing was still in a turbulent period of family, and when he was 11 years old, he followed his family to Hong Kong and stayed with his uncle.
2
Business talent is gradually revealed
Due to his proficiency in gold casting technology, Lee Shau Kee became the general manager of his own gold shop at the age of 12.
While in charge of the gold shop, the young Lee Shau Kee also found a business opportunity for his silver trumpet.
In the 1940s, "Ocean paper" coins were still popular in the market, and many people would wear out the paper money in the process of trading, which eventually led to the phenomenon that it was difficult to preserve.
Some people, in order to save these banknotes, will even sell them for 30%-40% less than their market value in exchange for new banknotes.
Lee shau Kee realized that there was a huge business opportunity here, because as long as there was a way to exchange old paper money for new paper money or equivalents, he could earn a huge difference in it.
Eventually, Lee took inspiration from washing clothes by soaking old banknotes in water, removing stains with bleach powder, then coating them with protein, and finally air-drying. After this set of processes, the old banknote becomes a new banknote, which is also convenient for preservation.
At this time, Lee Shau Kee's business talent has begun to officially appear.
At the age of 15, one person became the general manager of two stores and took over the management of the store.
Soon, because of the extreme depreciation of the currency, the family's wealth also experienced a roller coaster. After realizing he couldn't hang himself from a tree, in 1948, 20-year-old Lee Shau Kee came to Hong Kong with 1,000 yuan to make a living.
In the same year, the young Li Ka-shing had risen to the position of general manager of a plastic flower factory.
It was also this year that two young people with completely different family backgrounds and growth environments began to grow wildly in Hong Kong until they finally became competitors.
3
Grown savagely in Hong Kong
After arriving in Hong Kong, Lee Shau Kee was also engaged in the gold and foreign exchange business he was most familiar with.
It is also a coincidence that in 1948, many people were uncertain about the future, and did not know whether the money in their hands would eventually become waste paper, so many rich people went to Hong Kong to exchange for gold.
When it comes to exchanging gold, this is Lee Shau Kee's old line. Through this special opportunity, Lee Shau Kee accounted for a large amount of money, which is also his first bucket of gold.
In the 1950s, Hong Kong's population exploded and its economy grew rapidly, and real estate became one of the fastest growing industries.
In 1958, the 30-year-old Lee Shau Kee, together with 8 shareholders such as Fung King Hee and Guo Desheng, established Yongye Company to enter the real estate market.
It was also in this year that Li Ka-shing, who earned his first pot of gold through plastic spending, also began to enter the real estate market. This may be called the hero's vision of the same!
However, the real estate market at that time was directly sold in the whole building, which made many people have no chance to buy, after all, it was too expensive.
Lee Shau Kee took the lead in launching the strategy of "selling the whole floor and paying in ten years in installments", which was once again warmly welcomed by the market, and the properties built were all hot products.
In 1972, Sun Hung Kai Properties went public, and the founding partners of the company parted ways. Lee Shau Kee subsequently established Henderson Land Development Limited.
Due to the limited number of places in Hong Kong, how to get land at a low price has become a problem. Li Shaoji mainly has two tricks, one is to directly purchase the equity certificate from the farmers, and the other is to buy the old building, and after buying the next one, he will go around this building to buy the surrounding old buildings.
With the opening up of the mainland, Lee Shau Kee also turned the investment direction to the mainland, and eventually achieved the current Lee Shau Kee.
Through Lee Shau Kee's growth path, we can know that he basically walked every step in his life.
So the question is, how can you walk every step of life like Lee Shau Kee?
First of all, we must have the vision to find the user's pain point; second, we must try our best to solve the user's pain point.
Seemingly simple advice, it is much harder to do. Most of us actually have the ability to find user pain points, but unfortunately most of us "die" in the inability to solve it.
The difference between the big guy and the ordinary person is precisely reflected here, and if we want to make life different, we must be different at this point.