Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing has promised to pay tuition fees for a class of Chinese university students. His charitable foundation will fund Shantou University’s 2019 incoming class for up to five years. Li’s pledge will cost 100m Chinese yuan (£11.5m) a year. The 90-year old is worth $30.04bn (£23.8bn) according to Forbes.The foundation said in a statement: “The Foundation hopes this scheme can alleviate financial burdens for families and encourage the pursuit of personal interests and further learning to better prepare graduates for the challenges of an increasingly complex global economy.” Li’s move is similar to that of US billionaire Robert F Smith who said last month he would pay off the tuition debt of the 2019 class of Morehouse College. Li announced his retirement as chair of conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings last year, passing the mantle to his son Victor Li. Li started as a factory apprentice at 13 and has been nicknamed “Superman” for his business success. He was knighted by the UK in 2000. </s> • Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, announced on June 16 that his foundation will cover the entire cost of the tuition for Shantou University’s incoming class for up to five years.
• The pledge will cost him $14.4 million a year, according to the BBC.
• Li’s announcement comes a month after American billionaire Robert F. Smith pledged to pay off the Morehouse College class of 2019’s student loans and a year after The Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone began paying the tuition of every student at NYU’s medical school.

Shantou University’s incoming class won’t have to pay a cent in tuition thanks to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing.

The Li Ka-Shing Foundation announced June 16 that it will cover the class’ tuition for up to five years as a part of an ongoing initiative to make higher education more accessible in China.

Sometimes called “Superman,” the 90-year-old billionaire has a net worth of $30.4 billion, according to Forbes, making him the wealthiest man in Hong Kong. Li, who was born in China but moved to Hong Kong in 1940 to escape a Japanese invasion, began his career as a factory worker. He built his fortune as a real-estate developer and major investor in port operator and cell phone carrier CK Hutchison Holdings. Li retired from the conglomerate in May 2018, but still serves as a senior advisor.

Read more: Hong Kong’s richest man retired at 89 years old – here’s his incredible rags-to-riches life story

This is not the first time Li has worked with Shantou University. He served as the school’s honorary president before passing the torch to his son Richard Li Tzar Kai in June 2018. The school currently has 10,056 undergraduates, who are each charged $8,690 for tuition according to its website.

“The Foundation hopes this scheme can alleviate financial burdens for families and encourage the pursuit of personal interests and further learning to better prepare graduates for the challenges of an increasingly complex global economy,” the Li Ka Shing Foundation said in a statement.

Li’s announcement comes a month after American billionaire Robert F. Smith pledged to pay off the student loans of all 400 members of Morehouse College’s class of 2019. Last year, The Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone pledged to pay the tuition of every student at New York University’s medical school. </s> Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Li Ka-Shing

Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-Shing has pledged to pay the tuition fees for a class of Chinese university students through his charitable foundation.

The Li Ka-Shing Foundation will fund Shantou University's 2019 incoming class for up to five years.

Mr Li, aged 90, is worth $30.4bn (£24.2bn) according to Forbes.

Last month billionaire Robert F Smith made a similar move, saying he would pay the loans of a US college class.

The Li Ka-Shing Foundation will cover full tuition for four to five years for undergraduates, starting with the incoming class of 2019 at Shantou University, in the Guangdong province of China.

The move will cost 100m Chinese yuan ($14.4m; £11.5m) a year.

"The Foundation hopes this scheme can alleviate financial burdens for families and encourage the pursuit of personal interests and further learning to better prepare graduates for the challenges of an increasingly complex global economy," the foundation said in a statement.

'Superman'

Mr Li, who has a rags-to-riches story after starting work sweeping factory floors as a young boy, was ranked 28th on Forbes rich list in 2019.

He retired from his business empire last year, handing over the reins to his eldest son Victor Li.

The Li family's CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings groups are involved in sectors including retail, telecoms and power.

Mr Li was one of the first Hong Kong tycoons to invest in mainland China, and property accounts for a big part in his wealth.

The billionaire was knighted by the UK in 2000, and earned the nickname "Superman" for his business and investment success.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The moment a billionaire cleared a whole class's student debt

Mr Li's generosity comes on the heels of a similar move by American philanthropist Robert F Smith.

Last month the billionaire tech investor shocked graduating students in Atlanta, Georgia, by telling them he would pay off all of their student loans.

Nearly 400 students stand to benefit from the pledge to wipe out their debt, thought to be worth $40m. </s> It’s Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s turn now to support university students, a month after US tycoon Robert F. Smith vowed to pay off loans of undergraduates in an American college.

The Li Ka-shing Foundation said it will pay tuition for all undergraduates in the incoming class of 2019 for four to five years at Shantou University in Guangdong, the southern Chinese province Li came from as a refugee to Hong Kong decades ago. The foundation has committed to an annual grant of 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) to the university, it said in a June 16 statement.

The pledge by the city’s richest man, who turned a plastic flower business into a global empire spanning ports and property to telecommunications and retailing, is part of the philanthropic work his foundation has been doing globally. Since 1980, his organization has donated more than HK$25 billion ($3.2 billion) to health care, education and religious causes, most of it in the greater China region, according to its website.

The foundation has also supported reforms at Shantou University with grants of more than HK$10 billion.

Li, whose net worth is about $30 billion, retired in May 2018 and handed the top position at the family-controlled conglomerate to his eldest son Victor Li. Victor has stepped in as chairman of the group’s flagship companies CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and CK Asset Holdings Ltd., while the father, now 90, remains a senior adviser to his business empire.

The grant comes weeks after Smith, founder of Vista Equity Partners, stunned students at Morehouse College by vowing to pay off the student loans of every member of the class of 2019. The school told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution it will cost an estimated $40 million to retire the debt of the graduating class, which totals about 400 students. </s> Li Ka-Shing, who is Hong Kong's richest man, has vowed to pay an entire university class' tuition fees for the next five years.

The 90-year-old billionaire has taken the financial burden off of students' shoulders. The Li Ka-Shing Foundation will carry Shantou University's 2019 incoming class' study fees for up to 2024, BBC reported.

Legit.ng learned the move will cost Ka-Shing $14.4 million (which is more than N4 billion) a year.

Ka-Shing is reportedly worth $30.4 billion - an estimated N10.944 billion. In a statement, the foundation said it hoped that the scheme would help lift the financial burdens for families, as well as motivate the students to focus on their studies.

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According to reports, Ka-Shing retired from his business empire in 2018, leaving his oldest son in charge.

The family owns CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings, groups that operate in the retail, telecoms and power sectors.

Ka-Ching was not born rich; he worked as a cleaner as a young boy, sweeping the floors in a factory.

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CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General </s> Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing waves goodbye to journalists after announcing his retirement as chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd at a news conference in Hong Kong, China March 16, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing announced June 16 that he would fund up to 5 years of tuition for Shantou University's incoming class.

Before he retired in 2018, Li ran CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings, the two massive conglomerates that he built in Asia's most famous rags-to-riches story. Li now focuses on his charitable foundation, the Li Ka Shing Foundation, and has pledged one-third of his wealth to philanthropy.

While he is no longer the richest man in Asia, the 91-year-old still ranks as the 28th-richest person in the world and has a current estimated net worth of $30.3 billion.

Often called "Superman" and Asia's answer to Warren Buffet by the media, Li has an incredible and inspiring life story. He went from dropping out of school as a child to support his family to becoming the first person of Chinese origin to buy one of the British-built Hong Kong companies that dominated the city since its colonial days.

Christi Danner contributed reporting to an earlier version of this story. </s> Billionaire’s foundation funds tuition fee waiver in first for Chinese university </s> Feb 26 Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing, said on Thursday Hong Kong people would be "big losers" if legislators reject a government proposal for limited democracy, as some have threatened to do in their campaign for full democracy.

It was the sternest warning yet from the most powerful of the financial tycoons, who worry that demands for full democracy that brought thousands of protesters onto Hong Kong streets late last year will undermine stability and business.

Hong Kong legislators are due to vote in late June or early July on whether or not to accept a Beijing proposal, backed by the city government, that would allow all citizens a vote in the city's next leadership election in 2017, but only for candidates pre-screened by a pro-Beijing committee.

The protesters who camped out for two months last year and some city legislators reject that, and instead demand full and free democracy for Hong Kong.

"If the proposal got voted down, you and me, everyone in Hong Kong, will be big losers," Li, 86, said at an earnings briefing for his flagship companies, Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd and Hutchison Whampoa, whose combined market value is more than $100 billion.

"China gives us this policy, we turn it down, then who'd lose out if we regret it in the future? It's you and me ... I don't want to become a loser, especially a big loser."

A former British territory, Hong Kong is ruled under a "one country, two systems" formula that allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.

But Beijing ruled on Aug. 31 it would screen candidates who want to run for the city's chief executive in 2017, which democracy activists said rendered the concept of universal suffrage meaningless.

Democratic lawmakers who hold a one-third veto bloc in the 70-seat legislative council have vowed to vote down the proposal.

The Hong Kong government has warned that the city must make economic stability a top priority after the student-led protests last year paralysed some city districts and unnerved authorities in Beijing.

But Li said he was upbeat about Hong Kong's outlook, adding that its biggest advantage was backing from mainland China.

Known as "Superman" in Hong Kong for his deal-making savvy, Li was among a group of Hong Kong tycoons who visited Beijing in September to discuss issues including Hong Kong affairs with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. (Reporting by Clare Jim and Donny Kwok; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Robert Birsel) </s> Hong Kong’s former chief executive Donald Tsang, the highest-ranking ex-official to be charged in the city’s history, has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for misconduct in public office.

Mr Tsang (72) “breached the trust of Hong Kong’s people,” High Court Justice Andrew Chan said in sentencing the official who led Hong Kong from 2005 to 2012 and had guided the former Crown colony through a raft of financial shocks over four decades.

“Never in my judicial career have I seen a man falling from such a height,” the judge said when passing sentence.

Mr Tsang failed to disclose a three-storey penthouse apartment in the adjacent city of Shenzhen in China, and also failed to disclose a conflict of interest in negotiating rent for the property with his landlord Bill Wong.

Mr Wong is a major shareholder in Digital Broadcasting Corp., which at the time was applying for a broadcast licence in Hong Kong for the now-defunct Wave Radio.

“Today is a very dark day,” his wife, Selina Tsang, told reporters after the verdict. She said the family would appeal the conviction.

Mr Tsang was found not guilty of failing to disclose his relationship with an interior designer who refurbished the apartment for over €300,000, whom Mr Tsang later supported for a top city honour.

Mr Tsang was a popular chief executive, known in the city for his preference for wearing bow ties and held in high esteem for helping the city come through the Asian financial crisis.

A devout Catholic and daily communicant, Mr Tsang was close to Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was bishop of Hong Kong during Mr Tsang’s term as chief executive, even though they differed publicly on political issues, especially in relation to China.

Many leading figures in the territory had sent letters testifying to Mr Tsang’s character.

Towards the end of his time in office, media reports of sleaze began to surface and there were tales of yacht parties with tycoons and extravagant overseas trips.

The maximum penalty was seven years, and the judge said he had reduced Mr Tsang’s sentence by 10 months because of his record of 40 years of public service.

The jury failed to reach a verdict on a third charge that he accepted a bribe related to the refurbishment and the judge tentatively set a retrial for September.

In one month’s time, a committee of Beijing-friendly political insiders will choose the city’s leader for the next five years.

The jailing of Donald Tsang comes at a time when there are fears that the high degree of autonomy under the “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement left behind by the British after the return to China in 1997 is under threat.

Incidents such as the apparent abduction of booksellers critical of China into mainland custody, as well as the recent disappearance of a Chinese tycoon who later reappeared across the border ‘helping with enquiries’, has raised fears that Hong Kong’s freedom are under threat.

Observers have said the sentence reflects the continued independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong. Earlier this month, seven Hong Kong police were jailed for two years for beating a pro-democracy protester during the Occupy demonstrations.

The case against Mr Tsang was brought against him by the territory’s anti-graft agency, the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

While Hong Kong regularly scores highly as a corruption-free city, the Tsang incident is the latest in a series of scandals about abuse of power among the territory’s elite.

Mr Tsang’s right-hand man, Rafael Hui was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in late 2014 for receiving bribes from one of Hong Kong’s largest property developers.
Li Ka-shing, "Hong Kong's richest man", pledges to pay, via his charitable foundation, the tuition fees of the Shantou University's 2019 incoming class for up to five years.