Richard Li - Business Activity

Business Activity

Li is chairman of PCCW and chairman of PCCW's executive committee. He is also chairman and chief executive of the Pacific Century Group, chairman of Pacific Century Premium Developments Limited (PCPD), chairman of PCPD's executive committee and chairman of Singapore-based Pacific Century Regional Developments Limited. PCCW is a publicly traded company. In early 2009, Li attempted to take PCCW private again, offering to buy out existing public shareholders at HK$4.50 per share, a premium of nearly 55% to the HK$2.90 price before the offer was announced. In Hong Kong, acquisitions must be approved by shareholders with holdings totalling 75% of all voting shares, and additionally by a majority headcount of all shareholders no matter the size of their holdings. Shortly before the shareholders' vote on the issue, some large existing investors in PCCW granted shares to roughly 800 agents at Fortis Insurance Asia, following which a shareholder vote to approve the merger passed by 1,400 in favour vs. 850 against. As a result, activist shareholder David Michael Webb filed a complaint with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, resulting in an investigation by the SFC and an eventual court case against what its chairman Martin Wheatley described as "malpractice and manipulation of voting". Court of First Instance judge Susan Kwan initially approved the merger on 6 April on the grounds that such "share splitting" was legal in Hong Kong; however, the SFC appealed the case, and on 22 April, Anthony Rogers, Johnson Lam, and Aarif Barma of the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the SFC and against Li, thus blocking the buyout.

In June 2011, Hong Kong's stock exchange approved the carve-out of the telecommunications and mobile assets by PCCW, which also has broadband television, consulting and property businesses. The exchange initially rejected the proposal in April due to regulatory concerns. In September 2011 the final hurdles were cleared by Hong Kong’s stock exchange for PCCW to list its telecommunications assets as the city’s first publicly traded business trust. On 12 October 2011 PCCW shareholders approved the plan to spin off its telecommunications unit. The listing could raise more than $1 billion.

In September 2009, Li bought the asset management operations of AIG, AIG Investments, for around $500 million. Renamed PineBridge Investments, the business currently has some US$67 billion of assets under management.

Mr Li is a representative of Hong Kong, China to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and was, along with Mr Anthony Nightingale, praised by the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mrs Rita Lau, for “helping raise Hong Kong's profile in this important regional business forum”.