Bookstores around the world routinely carry investment tips from
Warren Buffett. It’s not so often that one of Asia’s most successful
businesspeople shares wealth advice at an international event.
Yet Henderson Land Chairman Lee Shau Kee of Hong Kong, who ranked No. 28 on the
2011 Forbes Billionaires List with wealth of $19 billion, did that last Thursday at an awards dinner arranged by Forbes Asia for members of our
2011 Best Under A Billion
list. Listees this year included Netease, one of the world’s most
popular online game websites, and Ctrip, a nimble travel booking
specialist that’s also based in China. Among the 200 guests at the Hong
Kong event were Bank of East Asia Chairman David Li and fashion designer
Vivienne Tam.
What suggestions did Lee offer to the audience?
Work hard and persevere. Clear enough.
- Use money to make money: Save your “first bucket of gold” – or
small fortune — from work, but then use it for investments. Don’t just
park money in the bank.
- For men, find a job that you will be happy with and work hard at.
Women, in line with an old Chinese proverb, should marry the right man,
Lee said.
- Don’t marry too early in life. It’s better to work hard when young and establish a career first.
- For those already successful, money can become a controlling factor
in life and make you a slave to it, Lee noted. One way to avoid that:
Philanthropy. Giving away money to the right cause, with a leveraged
effect and your own involvement in how it is spent, will “give you peace
of mind,” Lee said.
To that end, Lee also had another suggestion: try to maximize the
number of people that can benefit from an individual contribution. He
noted that he had set up a program that trained one million young
farmers in rural areas and helped them find jobs. Because each family
has about three members, the giving benefited more than three million
people.
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