Li Ka-shing Net Worth USD: $655,000,000 - $724,500,000

2020 Mean Estimate USD:

$690,000,000

Li Ka-shing Biography

Li Ka-shing, nicknamed Superman was born in Guangdong Province China, to Teochew parents. The family fled China for Hong Kong when he was 12. Then when his father died when Li was only 15 years old, he was forced to leave school and get a job in a plastics trading company, working 16 hours a day. Six years later in 1950 when he was 21 years old, he founded Cheung Kong plastics. Named after the Yangtze River and started with $6,500 of his own savings and loans from his relatives, he evolved the company into a real estate investment company. In 1972 it was one of the most successful companies of its type in Hong Kong, and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

In 1979 Cheung Kong acquired Hutchison Whampoa, and then in 1985 Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited, but it is through CK Hutchison that Li Ka-shing is perhaps most well-known, which was formed in 2015 as a result of the merger of Hutchinson Whampoa and Cheung Kong. This conglomerate has many subsidiaries including AS Watson Group which owns among others the Watsons and Superdrug pharmacies.

Li Ka-shing started investing seriously into technology, including one of the first big investors in Facebook in 2007. His philanthropic activities, under the guise of the Li Ka Shing Foundation have to date donated almost $3.5 billion.

His son Victor Li now runs his empire which spans the globe with operations in more than 50 countries after Li Ka-shing retired in 2018, though he still acts as an advisor.