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Financial success of Li Ka-shing’s top aide a rare case in Hong Kong’s tight-fisted business community

蘋果日報 2021/03/06 05:50


Canning Fok, the right-hand man of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, has made a fortune of close to HK$3 billion from his salary over the past two decades, a success story rarely seen in Hong Kong.
Fok, the co-managing director of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, has earned an annual income of no less than HK$100 million since 1999, earning the title of “King of Employees” for almost two decades. In 2019, his yearly salary reached HK$227 million.
One key to Fok’s success is his competence, which he displayed, for example, in the lucrative sale of U.K. mobile operator Orange in 1999. But Fok would never have achieved his wealth if his employer were like most other Hong Kong companies, who are reluctant to share their profits with employees, according to Alexa Chow, managing director with AMAC Human Resources Consultant.
Chow noted that, out of 100 private companies in the city, 90 did not show profits, while the other, profitable firms are generally unwilling to reward employees with a share of their gains. Fok’s case is as rare as one in ten thousand, she added.
Fok first joined what was then Cheung Kong Holdings as an accountant, and his negotiation skills were spotted by executive Simon Murray during a business trip to Japan. On Murray’s recommendation, Fok was given more important tasks within Li’s business empire, and soon proved his worth.
He created a new financing model to support the fast-growing Cheung Kong, in the Orange transaction that led to a HK$113 billion profit, and by turning Husky Energy into a profit-making enterprise.
Over the years, Fok has been entrusted with thorny tasks that might have embarrassed his boss, Li. In 2002 he helped Li defend the subsidiary supermarket chain ParknShop from criticisms made by pork vendors for launching a price war. In 2013, Fok hit out at unionist and legislator Lee Cheuk-yan over his role in a strike launched by workers at a container terminal operated by Li.
The senior executive has shown a fine balance between proving himself and not stealing his boss’s spotlight, according to business observers. In press conferences hosted by Li or Li’s sons, Fok never makes speeches unless his bosses tell him to do so.
The close personal relations between Fok’s family and Li’s reflect the trust that Fok has gained with the elder Li and Li’s heirs, observers say.
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