Richard Li, chairman and chief executive of Pacific Century Group, has won Hong Kong’s Businessman of the Year Award. Accepting the award he expressed the hope that the group’s flagship company, Pacific Century CyberWorks, will lead the way in Hong Kong’s bid to become a regional information-technology hub. CyberWorks is Asia’s third-largest internet investment-holding company.
Li said CyberWorks had invested $58m in internet-related businesses and that had already grown to be worth more than $850m with a third of the businesses having listed on the Nasdaq market. He said that most of the others would either list on Nasdaq or Hong Kong’s new equivalent, the Growth Enterprise Market. CyberWorks receives an average of eight applications for investment capital daily from internet start-ups, he said, most of them US, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Investment and incubation will be our major focus this year, he said.
In the internet sector, CyberWorks will focus mainly on internet-enabling technology and software technology. Internet content providers are important, but they’re only outside packaging, he said. Software technology and internet-enabling technology form the core of the internet business. If you’re a businessman, how do you know what’s selling well? How do you know what people are interested in? he asked, this is where internet-enabling technology comes in.
He predicted that the internet industry would move towards consolidation, with a handful of big global players dominating the sector. They will not be easy to compete with, he said. But Cyberworks certainly intends to try with its broadband satellite network, which is to cover 58 countries, being launched in successive stages next year.
To nobody’s surprise Li said he did not rule out future cooperation with Hutchison Telecommunications in broadband communications. His billionaire father Li Ka-shing is the chairman of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, the parent company.
