Asia’s tycoons are wrestling with two threats to the continued wealth and wellbeing of their family businesses, say bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore, the continent’s financial hubs.
The first is how to diversify away from the stuttering Chinese economy, but the second is more fundamental: how to cope with the “enemy within”, in the shape of siblings scrapping to take over their parents’ hard-built enterprises.
The way in which leading businesses in Hong Kong are dealing with these challenges has transfixed wealth managers across the region. Li Ka-shing, one of Asia’s richest investors, has continued to buy foreign assets while restructuring his interests to ease succession planning, and the dust is beginning to settle after a family power struggle for the Sun Hung Kai Properties empire, owned by the Kwok clan.