Top 10 richest business people in Hong Kong 2024

The top 10 wealthiest Hong Kongers, with almost $175 billion, have new names in 2024. Hong Kong’s unspoken “owner” Li Ka-Shing has been swept from first place by billionaire developer Lee Shau Kee. Robin Zeng, the owner of an electric car battery company, quickly overtook wealthy compatriots and took third place.

Protracted protests, the trade war between the US and China hit Hong Kong in 2019-2020. The “fragrant harbour” was not bypassed by the global coronavirus pandemic. All this inevitably affected the fortunes of Hong Kong’s richest businessmen.

New leaders

For the first time in a decade, the number of billionaires in the land of skyscrapers and unique opportunity has begun to dwindle. If at the beginning of 2019 there were 87 of them, then by the end there were 67, the decline continued this year – by August 2024, three more Hong Kongers left the Forbes list. At the same time, the result was also different: only 21 oligarchs showed an increase in their fortunes, while the rest lost assets. There was a reshuffle, and in the top ten the permanent leader Li Ka-Shing, the most influential businessman in Asia, was moved from the pedestal by Li Shauki, a real estate magnate.

Note! For all participants in the rating, the information is reflected based on Forbes real-time data as of August 2024.

Table 1. 10 richest entrepreneurs in Hong Kong

Place in the ranking		Full name	Status, billion $	What did you earn
Hong Kong	peace
10	143	Xu Rongmao	12.7	Real estate, financial services
9	134	Peter Wu	13.5	Real estate, telecommunications, ports, retail
eight	119	Louis Che Wu and family	14.7	Casino, hotels
7	117	Zhou Kungfei	14.8	Screens for smartphones
6	108	Lee Man Tat	15.2	Oyster sauce, medicinal herbs
5	92	Xu Hang	16.3	Medical equipment
4	89	Joseph Lau	16.7	Real estate, brokerage services
3	81	Robin Zeng	17.4	Batteries for electric vehicles
2	44	Li Ka-shing	26.6	diversified
one	42	Lee Shau Kee	27	The property

The list of dozens of leaders left Kwong Siu-Hing, Gong Hongjia, Michael Kaduri, and 3 new names appeared at once: Zhou Kunfei, Xu Hang and Robin Zeng, with the latter breaking into the very top. Consider who the debutant is next to, what they earned and why the four wealthiest residents of the country in 2024 lost.

#89. Joseph Lau, $16.7 billion

Most of Hong Kong’s wealthy entrepreneurs have made their fortune in real estate development, and Lau is no exception. And he started out selling lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, kerosene heaters and insect repellents – this is what the family company Evergo Industrial Enterprise, which Joseph inherited in 1978, sold in 1978. Only 10 years later, his eyes turn towards investments in securities and real estate . The aggressive policy of the development company Chinese Estates, pressure and even raider seizures lead to the expansion of the business. In 2006, he became a billionaire for the first time – at that time his wealth was estimated at $ 1.7 billion.

Now among the assets of Joseph Lau:

• real estate in the USA and Hong Kong;
• corporate and government bonds;
• blue chip stocks.

In 2019, he had $16.9 billion, by August 2024 – $16.7 billion.

Now the billionaire is 69 years old. In 2017, amid health problems—Joseph Lau diagnosed with diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease—passes on some of the wealth to his wife and children, but Forbes counts all of the family’s assets in its tally.

Interesting fact! Lau is a lover of rarities and jewelry. It is he who owns the rarest diamond “Blue Lagoon”. He bought a ring with a 12-carat stone in 2015 for $48.4 million and presented it to his seven-year-old daughter Josephine. The eldest Zoe also has a $33 million blue diamond.

#80. Robin Zeng, $17.4 billion

Having entered the global ranking of billionaires in 2018 with a capital of $1.9 billion, Robin Zeng increased his fortune by almost 10 times in 2 years. Such rapid growth became possible thanks to cooperation with automotive giants: BMW, Volkswagen, Geely, Daimler, Renault, Volvo. It is to them and to many other manufacturers that the Hong Kong entrepreneur supplies batteries for commercial and passenger electric vehicles.

The Modern Amperex Technology (CATL) company he founded develops and manufactures lithium-ion batteries, storage energy systems. Since being listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in November 2017, it has been promoting commercial vehicle electrification technologies around the world.

Interesting fact! CATL and Tesla in February 2024 signed a contract for the supply of low-cost batteries for 2 years.

According to Bloomberg, citing Chinese media, now we are talking about super-powerful batteries, which will be enough for 2 million kilometers, or 16 years. Many have already called the development “perpetual motion”.

The horizons of electric transport have just begun to expand. And this means that there will only be more areas for CATL’s activities, respectively, the chairman of the company Robin Zeng has every opportunity to overtake the old-timers of the Hong Kong billionaire rating.

#44. Li Ka-shing, $26.6 billion

He was the richest in Hong Kong for 19 years and only at the end of 2019 lost his position. The story of Li Ka-Shing is phenomenal – starting from the bottom and low-paid jobs, he was not only able to open his own business, but also created one of the largest business empires in the world.

His first production was an enterprise for the manufacture of plastic soap dishes and combs, and now there is no direction or industry that the billionaire would not be interested in. Real estate and shipping, media and retail, IT and oil, biotechnology and entertainment – not only in Hong Kong, but all over the world.

Experts attribute the fall in the value of assets to the departure of the businessman in May 2018 from the post of chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings. Anti-government rallies in the country also affected incomes. The situation has changed in 2024: despite the pandemic and age, Li is now 92 years old, he continued to work as an adviser and won back almost half of the amount lost.

#42. Lee Shau Kee, $27 billion

The new leader of the ranking of the Hong Kong rich earned a fortune in construction. But as the business grew, his circle of interests expanded. Hotels, restaurants, trade, Internet, communications, gas production and import – these are the areas Li Shau Kee has invested in.

Li’s business has also been affected by the unrest in the country. According to statistics, retail property prices in Hong Kong have fallen by more than 9% since the start of the protests.

However, his company Henderson does not stop working on large projects – it buys land in Shanghai and creates “Smart Homes”.

And as Hong Kong’s two top 92-year-old billionaires, Li Ka-shing and Lee Shau Kee, struggle to resist the new realities and compete for capital, they may be overtaken by debutants who have bet on new technologies.