Li Ka-shing Laughs off “Divestment” Claims After HK$1.3Bln House Sales

November 28, 2013 Leave a comment

Li Ka-shing Laughs off “Divestment” Claims After HK$1.3Bln House Sales

11-28 12:32 Caijing

The two conglomerates booked about HK$430 billion in gross revenue across the globe last year, but investment in overseas infrastructure this year only amounted to HK$13 billion – less than 2 percent of total income.

Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing has been busing trying to shake off concerns that he is pulling off of China by offloading assets both in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.In an interview with the Nanfang Daily today, Li said his business empires are rooted in Hong Kong, a status quo that will maintain forever, laughing off suggestions that his conglomerates Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa are planning to exit Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong typhoon was reportedly selling a villa in Hong Kong by his listed company, Hutchison Whampoa, which is worth some 540 million Hong Kong dollars. That came after a similar sale only a week ago, when Hutchison Whampoa offloaded a property for HK$740 million in the same region. Local media said this had been the fifth similar “divestment” move since the second half of the year while the billionaire was ratcheting up investments in Europe and other places.

It did not make any sense to suggest that Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa are pulling out of Hong Kong, Li said, calling such a claim “a joke”.

The two conglomerates booked about HK$430 billion in gross revenue across the globe last year, but investment in overseas infrastructure this year only amounted to HK$13 billion – less than 2 percent of total income, he said.

With businesses stretched in over 50 countries and regions, he said, he would like to sell or list some assets wherever prices are reasonable, which he called all “normal commercial activities.”

The two conglomerates are “based in Hong Kong, and will never leave Hong Kong,” Li told the mainland newspaper, “Once again I [must] stress that any sales in future, if there are, will come out of business considerations, and have nothing to do with ‘divestment’.”

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