Li Ka-shing’s New Deal is Latest Effort to Prop Up CK Asset Share Price
- Deal comes with a plan to buy back shares at 8% premium
- Lis have spent $566 million buying stock as prices plunged
Li Ka-shing
Photographer: Anthony Kwan/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and his eldest son Victor Li are stepping up efforts to boost the stock of family business CK Asset Holdings Ltd., after HK$4.4 billion ($566 million) of personal purchases of the company’s shares failed to reverse slumping prices.
Li’s charity, the Li Ka Shing Foundation, is selling CK Asset four companies holding stakes in infrastructure operations in the U.K. and the Netherlands for HK$17 billion in stock. To avoid diluting current shareholders, the company will buy back the same amount of shares from the market at an 8.4% premium to the previous closing price.