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Li Ka-Shing is playing host on the top floor of his cheung kong Center tower in Hong Kong's Central. It is where he often mixes business and pleasure, though rarely with a pair of reporters, his guests this day. Next door to the chairman's dining room is a canopied swimming pool, complete with plastic dolphin, where his four grandchildren can frolic. Elsewhere in the suite is a treadmill, on which 78-year-old Li, who's already had a morning golf round, puts in a 15-minute walk after lunch each day.
On this afternoon in early December he is recalling his past and projecting out a bit--five years hence--for the business empire whose saga has seen him go from plastic-flower manufacturer to the richest resident of Asia. His visitors are especially keen to hear of Li's plans for mainland China.
On matters of the moment--such as his foundation's share purchase in Hong Kong telecom entity PCCW, which will effectuate the exit of his second son, Richard, from controlling ownership--he says little. That deal has been seen as a save after Beijing objected to PCCW's otherwise falling into foreign hands. "Don't believe the stories too much," Li says. "If you know the truth, you will be disappointed."
Read the entire interview with Li Ka-Sking
Beyond insisting that a fixed-line business could be had in Hong Kong but that no foreigners have stepped up, he offers only: "This matter is over. Sorry, no comment."
But in terms of his own corporate ambitions in China, Li is more forthcoming. His conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa (other-otc:HUWHY.PK - news - people ), will roughly double the share of its revenues from the mainland in five years, he says, to 15%. Those businesses now are mostly ports, infrastructure, land development and hotel operations. Meanwhile, more property-heavy Cheung Kong (other-otc: CHEUY.PK - news - people ) Holdings should go to 20% of revenues from China, he says.
Although building will continue to be a mainstay of the Li thrust in China, under the direction of his elder son, Victor, the patriarch has a surprising answer when asked what future opportunities stand out: pharmaceuticals. "Any foreign company in pharmaceuticals, if they want to come to China, if they want a partner, we will be partners," he says. Big Pharma could integrate low production cost in China with the quality control of Western medicine and tap a huge domestic demand, Li foresees.
"Suppose the best medicine available in the U.S. could cure a man in three days, while some other mainland-produced medicine would take four days," he says. "The additional day it takes to get well does not present a major problem."
Isn't intellectual property protection still a worry, especially with itty-bitty pills? "Without IP rights, there would be no new technology developed. But China needs time and resources to set up a watchdog bureau. IP offenders must be brought to justice, even if you have to pay $1.10 in legal fees to recover $1 of loss."
Medical care, it turns out, is a big part of what Li Ka-shing is already doing in China. Shantou University, a state school he has generously funded, is running five affiliated hospitals and an influenza research center and received grants for 196 medical research projects last year.
The connection to Shantou, near Li's birthplace, is going on 25 years. He got the campus built on the outskirts of a relative backwater port city (of 4.8 million) along the booming China coast and is pushing the school to establish a globally minded curriculum with a Western sort of academic openness. "I cannot say I can change China," Li allows, but Shantou is part of the "personal example" that he wants to set.
Philanthropy, what Li calls his "third son," now occupies much of his attention. He has said he will devote a third of his wealth, which FORBES ASIA figures exceeds $20 billion, to such aims. Intriguingly, he says he won't put his holdings of listed-company shares into the charity. If there's another one-third, it's a grander fortune yet.
But he is not retiring from his businesses--far from it. Chairing both Cheung Kong and Hutchison, he stays current with a roster of operations that extends from development to telecom, utilities, retail, online media and petrol. In fact, a little-noted part of his holdings, Husky Energy, of Canada, is on this day one of his favorite subjects.
He muses that most media neglect his personal 37% shareholding in Husky, itself worth $10 billion, exceeding Hutchison's 35% stake. The oil company was in financial straits in the early 1990s when oil prices were low, but instead of cutting his losses, Li increased his shareholdings. Husky doubled its earnings last year as a result of the oil price spike.
In this and other areas, Li is proud of steeping himself in the technological basics and the external conditions of whatever business he's in. He says he continues to glom on to trade or engineering journals and retains outside experts to counsel him.
Speaking of Hutchison's embattled international wireless telephony ventures, Li rattles off vernacular of the so-called high-speed 3G multimedia phones with the same familiarity he evinces on the debt levels of the various units. His message: In business you have to know the product as well as the financing. Meantime, he admits Hutchison is "behind budget" in the U.K. wireless quest but nearing a profit in Italy, and he boasts that "we said, good luck to you" when the 3G license bids in Germany got too high.
(Deals in that sector and in earlier-generation--2G--phone units elsewhere may be taking out some of his holdings.)
Knowledge has always been his advantage, Li maintains. And debt--if you'll pardon the $31 billion in long-term borrowing that has gone mainly into the wireless efforts--is something he chooses to disparage.
At age 12, having left China with his family during the Japanese occupation, he arrived in Hong Kong for high school. His schoolmaster father had contracted tuberculosis, and young Ka-shing suffered a milder bout but worked through it ("I always had a fighting heart"). When his father died two years later, Li joined an uncle's watch company to help with his household's rent.
As time wore on and the war ended, young Li weighed where his future lay. The Chinese nationalists were finished, he calculated, so he laid business stakes in Hong Kong. With money tight, he skipped movies and shaved his head to extend the time between haircuts, he says.
What he didn't forgo was reading--used books, manuals, leftover journals. He credits superior preparation--he was often self-taught--for his gains. When he famously gained a manufacturing foothold with the plastic flowers in the 1950s, he says, he was able to engineer critical molding machinery with an injection process made using a Coca-Cola (nyse: KO- news - people ) bottle and a plastic straw, using something he saw inModern Plastics as a guide.
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