Li Ka-shing

Li Ka -shing (李嘉诚, lǐ Jiacheng; born June 13, 1928 in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province) is a commercial entrepreneur and investor in Hong Kong. 2013 his wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine to 31 billion U.S. dollars and thus took on the list of richest people in the world rank 8 a.

Li Ka -shing fled in his youth against the Japanese occupiers of his native southern China and moved to Hong Kong. His first company called Cheung Kong ( Long River ), he founded at the age of 19 years. The company introduced her artificial flowers made ​​of plastic and exported mainly to the USA. After only 12 years, the company has already made a turnover of 10 million Hong Kong dollars a year. Through skilful investment of profits in land and real estate increased Li Ka-shing 's assets. He owns part of the largest container ports around the globe (among Hong Kong, China, Rotterdam, Panama and the Bahamas). In 1972 he brought Cheung Kong (Holdings) on the stock market, in 1979, he became the majority shareholder of Hutchison Whampoa Limited. His companies make up about a third of the market capitalization of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In Germany, he holds a 40 percent stake in the drugstore chain Rossmann.

He participated with 100 million Hong Kong dollars in the financing of a building on the site of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In the Li Ka -shing - Tower are among other things the departments of Marketing and Logistics. His son Richard Li invested in the U.S. insurance company AIG half a billion dollars and acquired, among others, the Bulgarian telecom company Vivacom.