Tycoon Li Ka-shing and his family are preparing a leadership succession at CK Hutchison (0001) after it finishes the sales and divestment of assets in its telecommunications, port, and retail businesses, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
The firm has alerted its inner circle of investors, bankers and business partners about the proposed retirement of senior executives, including 73-year-old deputy chairman Canning Fok Kin-ning, who is set to step down after overseeing the completion of the telecom business spin-off, the report said.
Fok joined Li Ka-shing's team in 1979 and was promoted to CK Hutchison's co-managing director. He then stepped down from the role in 2024 to take up the positions of deputy chairman and executive chairman of the group's telecom business.
The conglomerate's chairman Victor Li Tzar-kuoi - the eldest son of Li Ka-shing, will choose a new generation of executives to oversee the investment and deployment of the capital from the asset sales that could total at least US$41 billion (HK$319.8 billion) upon completion.
Most of CK Hutchison’s executives have been working for more than three decades in the company, with the average age of the board of directors at about 69 - one of the oldest among constituents of the Hang Seng Index.
Over the past year, CK Hutchison has sped up the shuffle of its investment portfolio, selling shares of the UK's mobile operator VodafoneThree for US$5.8 billion in May, while its affiliates agreed to dispose of UK Power Networks for about US$14 billion at the start of the year.
It's also mulling an initial public offering for its beauty and health retailer AS Watson Group, planning to raise at least US$2 billion.
However, the company's plan to sell 43 global ports totaling more than US$19 billion has stalled amid intensified Sino-US tensions, especially over two Panama Canal terminals.
