"Work emperor" Huo Jianning

Fok Kinning, from Hong Kong. Born in 1952. Graduated from the University of Hong Kong, and then went to the United States to study, and obtained a professional accounting qualification. After studying in the United States in 1979, Li Ka-Shing was taken over by Cheung Kong Industrial Group, as director of accounting.

Later, he obtained the Australian Accountant qualification. He was appointed Executive Director of Hutchison Whampoa in 1984 and director of Changjiang Industries in 1985. He was promoted to Associate Director and General Manager in 1987. He became director and general manager of Hutchison Whampoa in 1993.

Fok Kinning is Hong Kong's highest-earning "emperor of workers." For every minute of an average 12-hour day, he earns more than HK $1,040 in his bank account and a daily salary of HK $750,000.

On 5 May 2010, the Inland Revenue Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government released data showing that the "working emperor" who paid the most salaries tax in 2009-2010 paid HK $91 million in tax, up 28.2% from HK $71 million in 2008-2009. With a salary of HK $124 million in 2009, according to Hutchence's annual report, Fok remains Hong Kong's "king of workers."

position

Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited - Executive Director and Vice Chairman

Cheung Kong Industrial (Group) Co., LTD. -- Director

The HongKong Electric Holdings Limited -- Chairman

Hutchison Whampoa Limited -- Group Managing Director Hutchison Telecom International Limited -- Chairman

Hutchison Harbour and Land Limited -- Chairman

Hutchison Telecommunications Limited -- Chairman

Partner Communications Company Ltd -- Chairman

Husky Energy Corporation -- Director

Anyone who has followed the news of Li Ka-Shing, Hong Kong's richest man, knows that every time Li Ka-Shing's Cheung Ho Group holds an earnings conference, Li Ka-Shing is accompanied by a middle-aged man with gray hair, who answers reporters' sharp questions from time to time. This middle-aged man is Huo Jianning.

Kinning Fok is a household name in Hong Kong's business community. In addition to being the managing director of Li Ka-Shing's Hutchison Whampoa Group, Fok is also one of the largest earners of the Inland Revenue Department's salaries tax each year. Last year, he was paid HK $170 million, the highest since 1999, according to the company's annual results report. His daily salary of HK $650,000 is dwarfing that of the likes of Li Ka-Shing, the boss, or Victor Li, vice-chairman. Although THERE ARE STILL MANY groups THAT have not published annual reports but based on the past years of experience, Mr. Fok has a good chance of once again becoming the "emperor of workers" in Hong Kong.

After the disclosure of the annual report, Huo once again became one of the hot topics on the street, but, interestingly, many of the young workers who strive for Huo Jianning know little about him. Who is Fok and why is he such a big hit in Li Ka-Shing's eyes?

"Expert" plus "Loyal servant"

According to Hong Kong media reports over the years, Fok Kinning, 60 years old this year, was born into an ordinary teacher's family. He graduated from the prestigious Diocesan College in Hong Kong and later moved to the United States and Australia, where he obtained his CPA license.

In 1979, Mr. Fok returned to Hong Kong to join Li Ka-Shing's Cheung Kong Holdings as an accounting officer. He resigned 3 years later and opened a joint venture accounting firm with his friends. However, the accountant firm soon closed the business, and Huo Jianning again cast Li's embrace, and return to Changsha. In 1985, Fok was appointed a director of Changsha and was promoted to deputy managing director two years later. In 1993, when Simon Ma, managing director of another Li Ka-Shing company, Hutchison Group, left, Mr. Fok took over as the new head of Hutchison.

From the above simple resume, it is hard to see how Fok Jianning has any outstanding points and can be favored by Li Ka-Shing. It was only in an interview in 2004 that Ma Shimin, the former head of HWANG, revealed for the first time how he had come to see Fok, who was 12 years younger than him: when he was on a business trip to Japan, Fok was seconded to help him, and Ma unexpectedly found him to be an excellent negotiator. After returning to Hong Kong from Japan, Ma quickly recommended Huo to Li Ka-Shing.

Huo Jianning's subsequent performance confirmed the extraordinary vision of Ma Shimin.

In 1993, Fok became Hutchison's managing director. But at the time, he was considered to have taken on a "hot potato". At the time Hutchison was aggressively expanding overseas, but its investments in British telecommunications network Rabbit and Canada's Husky Oil were both losing money for years and their share prices were chronically low.

After taking over, Fok sold Rabbit and transferred his investment to Orange, a personal communication network. Then he wrote off the debts of Husky Oil, reduced debt, and restructured. He actively cultivated oil and gas Wells.

He then took over handling Orange, Hutchison's European telecommunications business. In late 1999, Mr. Fok flew to Europe to sell Orange to Mannesmann, the German telecoms group and then sold the recovered Mannessmann shares to Vodafone of the UK for a high price. With this change of hands, Fok Kinning successfully made profits of over HK $100 billion for the group, creating the story that "He Huang made a profit of over HK $100 billion by selling Orange (meaning 'Orange' in Chinese)". The deal, which made Li Ka-Shing proud, netted Fok a bonus of HK $160 million.

The battle made Fok Kinning in the eyes of Li Ka-Shing, no one can replace them. In the past few years, Hutchison Group has become one of the world's leading telecommunications companies. Its companies and executives have won many honorary titles at home and abroad.

Mr. Fok can be Mr. Li's right-hand man in other ways, too. For one thing, Mr. Fok has an easygoing and low-key personality, but he is always there to fend off criticism of Li Ka-Shing and the group. For example, Li Ka-Shing's ParknShop supermarket was the first to lower the price of pork in 2002, which was criticized by meat traders for monopolizing the market. Fok immediately held a press conference to refute, "As far as I know, if it is a monopoly, we should raise the price. But now that we're reducing prices, I don't understand what monopoly is!"

The most interesting incident was the exchange of insults between Mr. Fok and Mr. Hu over whether the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge should be built. In August 2002, the Chairman of Hong Kong Real Estate developer and Group, Mr. Henry Wu, proposed to the HKSAR Government the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which would connect Hong Kong's Lantau Island with Zhuhai and Macao, as well as a container terminal, to develop Hong Kong as a logistics hub in southern China. Mr. Hu's proposal was backed by big developers such as Sun Hung Kai Properties, Jiuchang, and Shun Tak. But the bridge project was vehemently opposed by Mr. Li because of the threat it posed to Hutchison's port business.

Protect the main heart of Huo Jianning, then regardless of the identity of Hu Yingxiang. Huo Jianning, who was in Italy at that time, even held a press conference by teleconference to vigorously oppose Hu on the issue of cost-effectiveness, saying: "Mr. Hu proposed to build the bridge, he made money, I will congratulate him. But please don't affect others. It could kill people."

In contrast, in front of Li Ka-Shing, Fok is always respectful and obedient. According to a friend who knows Huo, "Even if I hand the phone to my boss, he will give it to me with both hands." And every time Li Ka-Shing says something, Fok takes it to heart. A senior financial journalist in Hong Kong gave an example: in August 2005, Li Ka-Shing made a grand statement at Hutchison's earnings conference, claiming that the group's global 3G customer base "will exceed 10 million within 45 days." On the 45th day, He Huang announced that the number of 3G customers in the world had exceeded 10 million. "Huo Jianning is not simple. He knows how to meet the requirements of the boss."

It can be summed up like this: what makes Huo Jianning the "emperor of the workers" is his combination of outstanding professional ability and time-tested "loyal servant character".

"Hong Kong version of Versailles" owner

Hong Kong business analysis, Fok Kinning's outstanding performance, and hard work are not unrelated.

Mr. Fok, a well-known work fanatic at Hutchie, works seven days a week, considers the office his home, and has had few holidays over the years. Even on the eve of his wedding in 1987, he was in Canada negotiating to buy the Husky oil business, only to break off for 11 hours and return to Hong Kong at the last minute to get married. In an interview with Reuters in 2003, he said he was religious about his work and enjoyed "the feeling that the whole world is against me." In doing so, he was able to make the trade of the century by selling "oranges" for $100 million at a time when 2G's value was being hailed. Now, when 3G is being written off, he is confident that he will prevail.

Friends around Fok pointed out that in addition to working hard, Fok also knows how to deal with Li Ka-Shing's son. In the early 1990s, when Victor Li, the eldest son of Li Ka-Shing, was working on the Mega Park project in Vancouver, Canada, and Richard Li, the second son, was also in Canada, Huo flew to Canada to accompany the two princes skiing.

There is Hong Kong financial people joke, "working emperor" mainly can be divided into two types of people: a kind of mental pressure to live a non-human life, late at night will go to the high consumption bar drunk forget me; Others are trying to build a life outside of work: regular patrons of Wyndham Street galleries and enthusiastic volunteers for charity organizations. Huo Jianning belongs to the former.

With an annual salary of more than HK $100 million, Fok used to live a wealthy life. In addition to playing golf, he also likes to listen to concerts and drink wine. He has a wine cellar at home and has a very large amount of wine. When her daughter, Fok Shangxin, was a child at Hong Kong International School, she had two bodyguards.

Mr. Fok's other hobby is buying luxury homes. In 1992, he bought the site at 64 Chung Kok Road for HK $16.5 million and built it into a 576-square-meter mansion that looks like an old castle. In 2006, Fok Kinning bought 37 Deep Water Bay Road for HK $350 million, which became a sensation in Hong Kong. The beige exterior wall of this $100 million mansion stands on a hillside, overlooking the entire Southern District sea view and the Deep Water Bay Golf course. It is so imposing that it is called the "Hong Kong version of Versailles".

But Mr. Fok also has a softer side. Fok's wife, He Qihua, was found to have early-stage breast cancer in 2003. In the beginning, He was depressed and chose to receive four 3-month courses of chemotherapy after surgery. "I will be by your side for the next three months," Huo told her at the time. After that, Huo Jianning was true to his word and did not leave Hong Kong for 3 months. Every time He Qihua had chemotherapy, Huo took a family of six and about 10 friends to accompany him to the clinic and chatted with her throughout the two-hour chemotherapy.

A side effect of chemotherapy is hair loss. "If you lose all your hair, I will shave my head to accompany you," Fok told her at the time. Although the hair loss may not be as serious as expected at the beginning because of the good drugs used in chemotherapy, nine years later, He Yihua is still not unmoved when she remembers this matter, saying: "He is the biggest pillar in my life!"