You can run but you can't hide. It's time to give awards to the Hong Kong corporates who best sum up 2006 with their triumphs, tragedies and treasurable moments.
THE ROBIN HOOD AWARD
Neither Dan Brown nor Michael Crichton could produce a more colourful financial script than the one we saw unfold as Richard Li Tzar-kai attempted to sell PCCW.
Almost as dramatic as French footballer Zinedine Zidane when he stole the limelight in the dying minutes of the 2006 World Cup, Prince Richard headbutted the Chinese government by challenging it to make a counter-offer to PCCW shareholders. In a follow-up, he told the world the mainland authorities were intervening in his business affairs.
In the process, he also crossed his father, Li Ka-shing, by asking shareholders at the last minute to reject Dad's bailout offer.
That was pretty robust treatment of his minority shareholders, whom Prince Richard had bothered to meet only twice in six years.
