The View | Once a bold dealmaker, Cheung Kong now dabbles in the 'unexciting'

There was a time when Cheung Kong (Holdings) and Li Ka-shing amazed investors with the kind of asset-stripping and bold deal-making that characterised the speculative and opportunistic glory days of Hong Kong's corporate scene.

Let's take a trip back to 1986 when Hong Kong's economy expanded by a healthy 9 per cent over the year.

Cheung Kong reported earnings of HK$1.28 billion, an impressive increase of 128 per cent over the previous year. Besides completing a number of property developments, its associate Hutchison Whampoa acquired Hongkong Electric in 1985.

Cheung Kong reorganised its business in 1986. Hongkong Electric's utility and non-utility businesses were separated. The non-utility holdings - including the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel (now the site of Cheung Kong Centre) and a 43 per cent stake in Husky Oil of Canada - were to become part of a new firm, Cavendish International Holdings. But, probably the most lucrative move was the development of Cavendish Heights, which was Hongkong Electric's former senior staff quarters in Jardine's Lookout.

The huge profits from that cluster of luxury high-rises that tower above Jardine's Lookout probably paid for the entire acquisition cost of Hongkong Electric. It effectively gave Li a free electricity utility and monopoly.

Those boom days have receded into Hong Kong's corporate folklore and the city doesn't offer such easy pickings for its new generation of entrepreneurs. Today, Hong Kong is a low-growth and low-opportunity economy.

Cheung Kong has long left behind its exciting buyout legacy. But, it increasingly looks like a confusing hedge fund struggling for new ideas or a boring non-bank kind of bank.