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SCMP Reporter

Li Ka-shing earns just $60,000 a year as the firm releases directors' pay by name

Hutchison Whampoa group managing director Canning Fok Kin-ning, long reputed to be Hong Kong's highest-paid executive, made $343,150  every day last year - a fact revealed yesterday when the Li Ka-shing-controlled conglomerate became one of the first blue-chip companies to list directors' pay by name.

The company's annual report, released online yesterday, shows Mr Fok made $125.28 million  last year. His boss, Cheung Kong and Hutchison chairman Mr Li, made $60,000 for the whole year - all from director's fees.

Mr Li is understood to make a lot more money from his share-trading activities.

Hong Kong's median monthly wage is $9,500.

Mr Fok's pay package, which included a $113.5 million bonus on top of a salary of $9.77 million, accounted for 48.2 per cent of the money Hutchison spent on its directors.

Mr Li's eldest son, Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, had a higher salary as managing director of Cheung Kong - $27.62 million - but trailed badly in the bonus stakes, picking up $30.52 million from Hutchison and a relatively paltry $4.36 million from Cheung Kong. Including the $4.44 million he was paid in salary as deputy chairman of Hutchison, Victor Li made a total of $69.78 million last year.

Mr Fok, the chief spokesman and salesman for Hutchison's troubled global third-generation mobile-phone roll-out, does not appear to have earned a pay rise last year. In 2002, he was understood to have made between $125 million and $125.5 million.

Hutchison's deputy managing director, Susan Chow Woo Mo-fong, made $34.46 million last year, including $26 million in bonus payments, while finance director Frank Sixt made $32.67 million.

The listing of directors' pay by name in annual reports became mandatory from Thursday under stock exchange listing rules implemented after more than two years of heated debate.

In the past, companies were only required to disclose the pay of top directors in band form without identification, a policy lagging international standards that was criticised for lacking  transparency.

The exchange introduced the change despite fierce opposition from many company directors, with some arguing that disclosure of pay by name could make them kidnap targets. In May 1996, Victor Li was kidnapped  in Deep Water Bay Road. He was released a day later after a ransom was paid.



Fok tops Hutchison wage list at $343,150 per day