China’s Communist Party chips away at Hong Kong business houses
The territory’s tycoons are falling out of favour
TO GET A sense of how Hong Kong’s magnates and China’s Communist Party have coexisted, consider Tung Chee-hwa. When his family shipping concern, Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), faced bankruptcy in the mid-1980s, a Chinese state-owned bank swooped in to bail it out. Mr Tung became the territory’s chief executive after Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, until protests pushed him out of office in 2005. In 2017 he cashed out of OOCL through a $6.3bn sale to Cosco, another state-owned giant.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Check your privilege”
Business May 22nd 2021
From the May 22nd 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Business
Corporate America’s diversity wars are just getting started
Donald Trump’s attacks on DEI are causing huge headaches for bosses
What Elon Musk should learn from Larry Ellison
The founder of Oracle has demonstrated remarkable staying power
Football clubs are making more money than ever. Players not so much
For both teams and their top stars, it helps to have a brand
The allure of the company town
Lego, Corning and the survival of an old idea
From cribs to carriers, high-end baby products are in vogue
Demographic and technological changes are making infancy more expensive
No one gains from American tariffs on cars from Mexico and Canada
Donald Trump’s levy will hit his country’s carmakers hardest