Word: kong
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...family firm, there is that moment when parent and boss intersect. For Hong Kong billionaire William Fung, that moment has arrived, and with it comes his own special predicament. In 1972, as a brash 23-year-old fresh out of Harvard Business School, he reluctantly joined Li & Fung, a trading company co-founded by his grandfather. William's first move was "to get rid of the family deadwood," he says, by taking the company public. His son Terence, 25, recently joined the business, and William, a drafter of Hong Kong's mini-constitution who is famous for having a judicious...
...winds are shifting, and the middleman is becoming obsolete. "Traditional trading firms are dying off," says Victor Lo, an industrial and manufacturing lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. "They have to transform." Brands and retailers have been consolidating, liposuctioning off layers to better battle Goliaths Wal-Mart and Target--which mostly do their own sourcing. A developing China and the Internet have made it simpler and more reliable for buyers to communicate directly with low-cost factories. Li & Fung has been able to achieve an average annual growth rate of more than 20% over the past decade. But going...
...This will help us do business with certain retailers in the world which we haven't been able to before--like Wal-Mart," says Bruce Rockowitz, president of Li & Fung's trading division. The Fungs "tend to be visionary," says Paul McKenzie, head of consumer research in Hong Kong for investment bank CLSA, "and get positioned early for change...
...extended Fung family, which controls 42% of the company's equity, still plays an important part in the business. William's eldest brother Victor--a former Harvard Business School professor whose name is often raised as a possible future leader for Hong Kong--is chairman. At the family's weekly Sunday brunches at a mountainside luxury tower that houses three generations of Fungs, the brothers usually pair off to talk shop. But unlike many other Asian companies, which are treated as opaque clan fiefs, Li & Fung produces a straight-talking triennial three-year plan, and the brothers are regularly ranked...
Asia's major airlines will soon start feeling the pinch. Airline analysts and executives expect budget carriers to drag down fares throughout Asia. Both Singapore Airlines and Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, Asia's premier airlines, deny they are cutting prices in response to this new threat. But they have been offering what they call routine special promotions. In May Cathay Pacific sold round trips between Hong Kong and Singapore for $128even less than the $160 fare offered by Singapore-based low-cost carrier Valuair, which started flying that same month. Major airlines "have been advertising prices even lower than...