'Superboy' comes crashing back to Earth
Friday, May 18, 2001
VICTORIA BUTTON
If the definition of good publicity is making the front cover of Time magazine, then the absolute reverse probably looks something like the one-paragraph mention Richard Li Tzar-kai received recently.
Last April he appeared on the cover and was referred to as the "Superboy" with a "spanking new empire" after Asia's biggest takeover outside Japan - Pacific Century CyberWorks' merger with Cable & Wireless HKT.
Then, almost exactly a year later, came the paragraph in a column listing "People to Watch in International Business".
"Li, 34, had much more to explain recently than his company's US$886 million [HK$6.91 billion] loss during 2000. For instance, why did he claim to be a 1987 Stanford graduate when he had spent only three years there? . . . The Stanford admission may have made credibility as big a problem for Li as profitability."
The market analysts who made him their darling had also started muttering about the company's need for reform and a lack of management depth.
There was speculation that big-name executives would be hired as line managers - a move the company in effect said was possible yesterday.
Mr Li is not having a much easier time of it at the hands of Time's stablemate publication Fortune.
To be fair, Mr Li was invited to the Fortune Global Forum last week and cameras relaying proceedings to the media dwelt on his cheerful chats to corporate types before the first session.
However, he was notably absent from a later session, called Next Generation Leaders Look Ahead, which included James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of Star TV, and Jeffrey Koo Jnr, president and chief operating officer of Chinatrust Commercial Bank.
Mr Li was also not one of the 25 rising stars profiled in the magazine. Instead, Hanson Cheah, 36, founder of AsiaTech Ventures, was picked to represent Hong Kong.
A year ago, Mr Li seemed to have something approaching a perfect life - beautiful women, respect for having emerged from his father's shadow, even a TV in his shower.
When he was up, there seemed to be an unusually large number of people in the dotcom world who suddenly decided they too should buzz-cut their hair, wear chinos and abandon their ties.
The media made much of the mansion he was building at Shek O, his luxury apartment, his work ethic, his nickname in the Chinese press of "Golden Bachelor" and his flash lifestyle.
Roll the tape forward and you can see the crowd at the Rugby Sevens backing the call when, on the big screen, a message along these lines appears amid the birthday greetings: "Richard Li, where's my money?"
Pacific Century CyberWorks' share price has tumbled to a fraction of its former glory - and you could almost hear the knives being sharpened as it fell. If you invested your fortune in the company at its peak of $28.50 a share early last year, you would now be sitting on a pile less than one-tenth the size.
When the Stanford scandal broke, the world's media jumped all over the story. Pacific Century CyberWorks' history of fastidiousness at detecting errors - perceived and real - in coverage did not help, as the media pointed out with delight that Mr Li had never bothered to correct the claim he had graduated from Stanford.
The resonance of the story was based on more than the age-old delight in seeing the mighty fall - or at least stumble. It came to symbolise the bursting of the Internet bubble itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCMP.com is the premier information resource on Greater China. With a click, you will be able to access information on Business, Markets, Technology and Property in the territory. Bookmark SCMP.com for more insightful and timely updates on Hong Kong, China, Asia and the World. Voted the Best Online newspaper outside the US and brought to you by the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English launguage news source.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published in the South China Morning Post. Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved.
hongkong.scmp.com |
