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SCMP Reporter

There is a myth around town that Li Ka-shing is one of the lowest-paid board members around with his reported $5,000 a year earnings as chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings.

  But your correspondent is not just yet shedding salty tears for the property tycoon.

  While it would barely pay a month's rent anywhere in Hong Kong, Mr Li has more than adequate compensations for his paltry Cheung Kong reimbursement.

  Not least of these are his dividends from his personal stake in the property group - which he recently raised to 33.6 per cent.

  Given that Cheung Kong yesterday announced it was raising its interim dividend from 30 cents to 33 cents per share, Mr Li will pick up a tidy $254.6 million without lifting a finger.

  His payouts from Cheung Kong show no signs of abating - given Mr Li's undertaking to at least maintain the company's current record dividend level for the forseeable future.

  It all spells further spoils ahead for the $US10.6 billion man. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the most hyped software launch to hit Hong Kong, or anywhere else for that matter - courtesy of Harvard's most famous dropout, Bill Gates.

  Microsoft's ubiquitous worldwide campaign to christen its Windows 95 program last year touched all of our lives in some way, if only because of its non-stop advertisements with renditions of the Rolling Stones' megahit, Start Me Up .

  True to the lyrics of the song, the saturation advertising by Microsoft really did make grown men cry, your correspondent included.

  Little wonder - a company spokeswoman says Microsoft spent about $US20 million on its marketing campaign for the launch, with many millions of dollars worth of additional free publicity coming from a fawning press.

  Worldwide sales of the program have topped 40 million units, while Hong Kongers also have taken it to their hearts, despite a rather troubled media launch in Times Square last year where the program was mistakenly entitled 'Mindows 95'. Incidentally, Microsoft will no longer be able to crank out Start Me Up after tomorrow.

  According to the company official, the computer giant's rights to the hit song expire on the first anniversary of the Windows 95 launch.

  Mr Gates and his merry representatives reportedly shelled out millions of US dollars for the exclusive promotional rights to the hit song for the year. Continuing on the rather furry theme which has been high on Lai See's agenda this week, a poser: How do you find someone with the right qualities to run a stuffed toy company?   Not very easily, if headhunter Ian Basser is to be believed.

  Mr Basser, head honcho at Michael Page International, singles out his recent search for someone to take charge of a company with a sole purpose of producing those lurid multi-coloured animals - like giraffes and mini-dinosaurs - as among his toughest assignments.

   For those who have never had their 'head' in demand, the thought of a call and offer of more money might seem the stuff of mid-afternoon daydreams.

   But toy company executives are not your everyday type of headhunter's assignment.

   On the island of Mammon where matters material appear to dominate all agendas, your restless local toy supremo is looking for a lot more than just a thicker pay packet.

   Does your mundane, everyday executive place the size and quality of his indoor plants over a bonus?    Lai See suspects that despite Mr Basser's experience with the cuddly toy caretaker, the answer would probably be in the negative. Our piece on Tuesday about frivolity taking over serious academic works has prompted unprecedented interest from all you study-heads out there.

  The Chicago Board of Trade's Financial Exchange magazine also appears to be resorting to the light touch to draw readers.

  No better is this illustrated than in the Chaplinesque 'T-Bond Options' Implied Volatility Mean - Reverting to Futures Long-Run Mean Volatility'.

  This howler's purpose is to 'present evidence from the Treasury bond futures market which demonstrates that implied volatility in T-bond issues is indeed mean-reverting, and that the mean to which it reverts is the long-run mean volatility of the Treasury bond futures'.

  Ah, they just don't write serious literature like they used to. Nury Vittachi is on holidays.



Poor old KS mightn't be so highly paid, but amahs don't get interims like this