New | Ronald Li – still doing trades in stock market to the last before passing on
“When he was in the hospital in the last few months, he was struggling with stomach cancer. But he had not lost hope and he still asked me to buy stocks for him” - Alfred Li
The godfather of Hong Kong’s stock exchange, Ronald Li Fook-shiu, saved his best for last by turning a profit on his deathbed, according to his son.
His last trade in Bank of China (Hong Kong), as many of his investments in the past eight decades, was profitable. He bought the shares at HK$19 and sold them at HK$26, a profit of 36.84 per cent. He realised the profit a few weeks before dying on December 27 age 85, said Alfred Li Kwok-lung, his 62-year old eldest son.
“When he was in the hospital in the last few months, he was struggling with stomach cancer. But he had not lost hope and he still asked me to buy stocks for him,” Alfred Li said in an interview with the Post.
Mourners from a Who’s Who of the city filled the Hong Kong Funeral Home as well as St John’s Cathedral last week to remember Li. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, and former stock exchange chairman Charles Lee Yeh-kwong were among many who paid their respects.
Ronald Li was youngest son of 12 children when he born on the first day of the Lunar New Year in 1929, the same year when the stock market crash in New York ignited the Great Depression.
“That is prefect timing as he could earn a lot of laisee money at his birth. He is always smart in making money,” Alfred Li recalled with a laugh. Chinese people give laisee to children and unmarried young people during the Lunar New Year.