captains of industry notable by their absence in cyberspace
Wikipedia, the online 'encyclopedia', pops up with such regularity on search engines nowadays that Lai See was curious to know how many of Hong Kong's corporate great and good had been entered into its database.
Our research shows that the PR flacks of the blue-chip firms have been seriously remiss in getting their bosses on to what is fast becoming an internet phenomenon. (There's no excuse, gang. After all, you get to write the copy yourself and it's free.)
Limiting ourselves to the 50 top firms by market capitalisation we found that Li Ka-shing is there, as are his two sons. Walter Kwok Ping-kong makes it but not his brothers Thomas and Raymond, who actually run the show at Sun Hung Kai Properties. Henderson's Lee Shau-kee, New World's Cheng Yu-tung and Wharf's Peter Woo Kwong-ching are the other representatives of the Big Five developers. Hang Lung's chairman Ronnie Chan Chichung is nowhere to be seen.
David Li Kwok-po of Bank of East Asia rates an entry, as does BOC (HK) chairman Xiao Geng. The local chief of HSBC, Vincent Cheng Hoi-chuen, is missing and so are Hang Seng Bank's Raymond Or Ching-fai and Standard Chartered's Mervyn Davies.
Mainland entries are few. Citic Pacific's Larry Yung Chi-kin is in, as are home appliance king Wang Guangyu and paper queen Zhang Yin. As for non-Chinese business, its only representative is CLP chairman Michael Kadoorie.
Below the level of such people, there are those who either think they deserve inclusion, or have friends who think they do.
