有些時候，很想一嘗當有錢人家的子女，想知道過過的是什麼生活，是不是要什麼有什麼，要風得風、要雨得雨呢﹖而那些有錢人，而且是十分出名的名人，過的生活是否很精采呢﹖香港的狗仔隊日以繼夜的追尋他們的最新動向，難得香港的名人，竟然出現在澳洲的報紙中，他便是李澤佳。
在各大報章中，他的稱號為「小小超」，全因他的老父被稱為「超人」，但在大前天的Australian中，他被這所報章以大篇幅來數他的不是，十分精采。那文章的題目為 HK’s junior tycoon no “Superman’ 這已是一個十分吸引的title，猜也猜出對他的評價為負面的。
才二十五歲，已當上上市公司的主席，在著名的史丹福大學 (Stanford University)就讀，但數年前被爆出他原來並沒有成功畢業的，相反，他的老父李嘉誠從少沒有受過教育，但在成名後在史丹福的honors degree畢業的，論用心程度，已被他爸比下去。
文中以三件事件令他以及他的公司受注目。首先是他成立的Pacific Century CyberWorks，在數年前的科網股熱潮中，股價不繼上漲，很多小股民因為從中獲利而對他稱讚不已。在一九九九年，他在全無對手下拿得數碼港 (Cyber Port)的發展權，原意是為香港發展數碼工業，但後來的一切，已被證實為他的地產項目 (real estate development)。最後，是在大陸政府的協助下，成功從新加坡政府中搶走香港電訊 (HK Telecom)的控制權，令這項重要的資產留在香港人手中。
但so far只是看出他那物業少少賣賣出色，實在的公司業績則沒有什麼給人看，他的公司share大多都不太被看好，在收購了香港電訊後，他的PCCW股價反而不繼下跌，令不少股民稱他為「仆街仔」。現在他的注目行動是，賣出PCCW，而這已引起多家財團的注意，爭相的出高價買入，但在消息傳出後，大陸的反應是十分不滿，一來，一家國企公司是PCCW的第二大股東，在事前竟沒有跟他討論。二來，大陸視電訊為一項戰略產物 (strategic asset)，不可隨意賣給外國人的，這樣一來，已引發出不少的風波，多年來，李嘉城可以在香港呼風喚雨，或多或少是他能夠掌握政府的心聲，從而得到政府的照應，現在李澤佳不顧大陸的反應來做生意，恐怕會令北京覺得不受尊重，隨時會失去在香港monopoly的資格。
李家的皇朝﹐會否隨著李嘉城老去而衰落呢﹖
HK’s junior tycoon no ’Superman’
(copy of an article in Australian)
Rowan Callick, China correspondent
July 03, 2006
NERDISH Richard Li has an extraordinary capacity to attract attention, but has so far demonstrated less ability than his father Li Ka-shing - known to fellow Hong Kongers as ”Superman” - to make money at the same time for investors.
Early in his career as a junior tycoon, 14 years ago, he made a $1.3 billion profit selling satellite Star TV to News Corp. He has failed to replicate that success on behalf of his shareholders, but has demonstrated a canny capacity to look after his own stakes.
Li, now 39, used that original cash to found internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks, today known only as PCCW - the company whose assets are exciting bids from Macquarie Bank, said to be worth about $7 billion, and US private equity fund Texas Pacific Group-Newbridge.
It proved a tad difficult at first for Hong Kongers - more used to putting their money into property developers, traders or cheap-labour factories in southern China - to get their heads around PCCW’s apparently arcane geekish ambitions. Li fitted the part, having been educated at Menlo Park School in Silicon Valley, then at nearby Stanford University - although he failed to complete his degree - while his father had graduated with honours from the school of hard knocks. But Richard Li’s company was then propelled into stardom by three events.
First, the tech boom simply drove up the price of all shares with names like ”cyber”. In Australia, junior miners became star net stocks overnight. In Hong Kong, the same happened with property developers - ”bricks to chips”, as Bank of East Asia chairman David Li (no relation) described the phenomenon.
Second, Richard Li was in 1999 awarded, without competitive tendering, a mass of government land on the west of Hong Kong island for development as ”CyberPort”. This was claimed to provide the Silicon Valley-style setting for Hong Kong’s thrust into new technology but has instead become, as most pundits tipped, just another $2.7 billion real estate development.
Third, his PCCW won control of Cable & Wireless’s Hong Kong Telecom - the city’s establishment telco, controlling all fixed lines - in the face of fierce competition from Optus owner SingTel. The Chinese Government threw its weight behind Li, with its Bank of China providing crucial funding. Telstra, which had previously made only a few cautious forays into Asia, then threw in its lot with the young Li as its new partner who might even, it was whispered, be able to usher the Australian giant into special deals in the People’s Republic.
Of course, Telstra backed the wrong Li. His dad’s Hutchison telco and many other massive utility investments in Australia have boomed. Telstra has lost and written down something like $2.7 billion since its first fling with Li.
Then last year, Li landed another benefactor - government-owned China Netcom, the dominant provider of fixed-line telecommunications in northern China, which forked out $1.35 billion for 20 per cent of PCCW.
As the dotcom boom peaked in 2000, PCCW soared to market capitalisation of $57 billion, before collapsing. It has recently climbed modestly back, as far as $6.6 billion thanks to the bidding war launched by Macquarie, within whose team News has also expressed a modest interest. But this remains far short of the $38 billion PCCW paid Cable & Wireless - mostly in overvalued PCCW shares - for those fixed lines six years ago. Li controls PCCW via ownership of 75 per cent of Singapore-listed Pacific Century Regional Development, which controls 22.7 per cent of PCCW. In 11 years, PCRD has not paid a dividend and owes $678 million.
The Macquarie or Newbridge deal would wipe that debt and at last deliver those patient minority shareholders a return. But there remains one big obstacle: Beijing.
Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, has long learned to tack successfully to take advantage of every wind from East and West. And if his son Richard had asked before putting PCCW’s assets up for sale, he would surely have learned that Beijing has a clear view of what it sees as ”strategic” industries: they stay under our control.
Telecommunications is certainly one of those industries. Hong Kong might be a ”special administrative region” but it remains part of China. China Netcom stated after the bidding war began that it ”did not want to see any changes in PCCW, which is owned and managed by Hong Kong people”. It further appears that China Netcom’s investment came laden with a condition that it needed to approve the sale of PCCW assets, which include internet and mobile phone services and pay-TV.
Where does that leave everyone? The shareholders are now frustrated, having jumped for joy at the prospect of exiting the company with at least something, even if it’s probably nowhere near what they originally forked out.
Macquarie and Newbridge are busy lobbying in every direction, uncertain as to who will have the final say. Both of course have other interests in China, which doesn’t want to be seen as interfering unduly in Hong Kong business, especially in the business of the First Family. But neither does it want to let a core utility end up under the control of foreigners, either Australians or Americans. Richard Li looks as if he’s played his get-out-of-jail-free card in his Hong Kong Monopoly game, but is still staring at bars. His cunning ploy, that he’s only selling the assets not PCCW itself, hasn’t really helped.
The Singapore/Taiwan broking house Kim Eng-Yuanta Securities says in its latest report: ”To strike a deal which pleases all parties seems to be an impossible task.”
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