Li Ka Shing - Asian "Superman"

Hello and welcome to my blog to all my loyal blog viewers. How are you guys doing?

Today I am going to present to you my favourite “superhero”. We all need heroes or someone to look up to. This is because the person who we choose to be as our idol, mentor or even hero are most of them the person we admired and they are the ones who we want to be as well. The "superhero" that I admired since I was small is the Asian Superman.

The Asian Superman that I’ve be mentioning about is not other than the honourable Sir Li Ka-Shing. In Hong Kong, he is referred as Superman as his discipline and clear head for business had earned him that nickname while globally he is one of the most successful entrepreneur today. Forbes magazine has reported Shing’s net worth asset of $25.5 billion making him the richiest person in Asia and 9^th richiest person on earth at the moment.

Now, I would like to share the ups and downs in Li ka Shing life and the many obstacles and challenges he faced before becoming a successful tychoon as he is today. What do Li Ka- Shing and most of the other billionaire such as Bill Gates, Mark Zucherberg, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell have in common. There are all drop out of schools and college. Seeing all this billionaire entrepreneurs sometimes makes me wonder do I need to be a college dropout to be successful.

Li was forced to quit school when he was 12 to take care of his family although he is academically good. This is because his father died due to tuberculosis and at the moment his family is not financially stable to pay for the treatment. Li promised his father before he died that he will ensure their family will have a good future and eventually he made it.

Li being the breadwinner supports his family by selling plastic watchbands and belts. When Li was 12, he already felt that he was like 20. He understand life early, through the hard way he once said. He took up different kind of jobs and work about 16 hours a day. He had always work towards his belief that the most important thing is to improve yourself and give your best. His hard work and determination pays off when he opened his own plastic manufacturing company, Cheng Kong Industries named after the longest river in China.

The start up capital for his company was borrowed from family, friends and contacts with his former customers during his job as a salesperson. 

“ The first year,as I didn’t have much capital, I did everything myself, which kept my overhead low, I started from the bottom up”, he said.

A few years later, Li became the largest supplier of plastic flower in Asia and was able to make a small fortune. In 1958, he then diverse his business to real estate and founded Cheng Kong Real Estate Company 13 years later. By the age of 30, he had made a name in Hong Kong as a successful entrepreneur. Today, Mr Li owned four public listed company namely Cheung Kong Holdings Limited, Hutchison Whampoa Limited, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited and Hong Kong Electric Holdings Limited. Now, Mr Li Ka Shing has major investment and operations in around 24 countries such as U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and France.

Mr Li from living as a refugee and being forced out of high school is now truly considered as one of the most powerful figures in Asia, Li was named "Asia's Most Powerful Man" by Asiaweek in 2001. Forbes Magazine and the Forbes family honored Li Ka-shing with the first ever "Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award" on September 5, 2006, in Singapore. In spite of his wealth, Li has a reputation for leading a no-frills lifestyle, and is known to wear simple black dress shoes and an inexpensive Seiko wristwatch. Li is also regarded as one of Asia's most generous philanthropists, donating over $1 billion USD to date to charity and other various philanthropic causes.