The 1890s were not an easy time in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, and when shipping manager Li Shek-pang started his ship-chartering business he was probably unsure whether it would last many years.
He could hardly have guessed that his investment marked the birth of a business dynasty whose members today hold or have held almost every top job in Hong Kong.
His great-grandsons alone include David Li Kwok-po, legislator and chief executive of the Bank of East Asia, Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, vice-chancellor of Chinese University, and Andrew Li Kwok-nang, first Chief Justice of the Special Administrative Region.
Then there is leading liberal lawyer Gladys Li, Shek-pang's great-granddaughter, plus Alan Li Fook-sum, chairman of stewards of the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
And now, Li Shek-pang's dynasty has won another accolade: a lengthy, and rather favourable, account of its members' rise published by one of the former colonial power's most prestigious publishing companies.
Li Shek-pang's father Li Ka-shing came to Hong Kong from Guangdong, probably in the 1850s as part of an exodus of wealthy families fleeing the Taiping rebels. But it was Li Shek-pang who started the family pattern of prodigious multiplication of both offspring and capital. Shipping, then banking, law and government have proved fertile fields for the family.