Star TV made Richard Li, younger son of Hongkong's richest man, a corporate bigwig in his own right. Now the tycoon, all of 27 years, is moving on to other exciting things through a company which will have Singapore as its regional headquarters. CATHERINE ONG of Business Times finds out more about the man beneath the public facade.

MR RICHARD LI hosted a concert and dinner in Singapore the other day, and al l the movers and shakers of society came.

The guests, according to eye-witnesses, included Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Chief Justice Yong Pung How, Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo, the chairmen of the Big Four banks, and chief executives of major government-linked companies.

One man who was conspicuous by his absence was Mr Li Ka-shing, Hongkong's richest man and father of the 27-year-old host. "That was clearly his (Richard Li's) do," a dinner guest observed.

If Mr Richard Li is trying to assert his place in life, he is halfway there judging by the looks of things.

He showed he was not just another rich man's son out to squander the wealth created by the first generation when he built up Star TV in less than three years into the first pan-Asia satellite TV network with 200 million viewers in 38 countries.

In a financial coup, he sold the network to media baron Rupert Murdoch last year for a cool US$525 million (S$787 million), or six times the original investment.

He then turned down the top job at Hutchison Whampoa, Hongkong's biggest conglomerate and controlled by his father, to set up his own company, Pacific Century Holdings, with the US$400 million profit he raked in from Star.

Pacific Century will be the new corporate vehicle through which the younger Li intends to prove he is worthy of the tradition which has turned his father, in four decades, from plastic flower-seller to Hongkong's Superman, as Mr Li Ka-shing is nicknamed in the British territory.

Mr Richard Li was in a relaxed, genial mood during an interview recently.

Sitting in his spacious but spartan office on the 38th floor of The Concours e at Beach Road, he looks a picture of sartorial elegance in his well-starched Oxford-stripped shirt and aquamarine tie.

He speaks with a clipped British accent despite having lived more than 10 years in the United States.

In conversation, he exudes confidence far beyond his years. It is not every day that one comes across a 27-year-old who moves with the ease he does among some of the most powerful political and business figures around.

He has talked technology with Mr Lee, discussed business plans with Malaysia n Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, negotiated a US$525 million deal with Mr Murdoch, and snubbed cable TV king Ted Turner.

And he is set to make Singapore the regional headquarters for Pacific Century, now in the process of taking over listed Seapower Asia Investments.

Pacific Century will focus on telecommunications, infrastructure and financial services.

Mr Li said he is attracted to Singapore because he has confidence in the legal system, the capital market is well regulated and there is a pool of skilled managers.

"We are not saying our whole company will move here now, we're not precludin g it if we feel the environment and the government is indeed open to us to do so."

Plans to beef up the company's presence here appeared to be in an advanced stage. It employs about 130 people in Hongkong and a dozen in Singapore. The Singapore office, now occupying 4,500 sq ft of space, will be expanded by another 3,500 sq ft soon.

Another sign of his growing commitment here is the recent purchase of an apartment for himself in expensive Nassim Road.

After he takes possession of the flat in October, Raffles Hotel is likely to

lose his patronage during his weekly trips to Singapore, usually from Thursdays to Sundays.

Mr Li brushes off the suggestion that he is trying to get out of the old man's shadow and prove his own mettle.

"There is no shadow. I would like to run my own type of company. It's a personal desire."

Of course, having Mr Li Ka-shing for a father helps to reinforce one's belie f in oneself.

His confidence has also been honed during the years he was left to fend for himself in a foreign country.

Before his 14th birthday, his father sent him to prep school in Menlo Park, California, and left him very much on his own. He waited at tables during vacations and ate all the TV dinners on the market.

He gained entry into the top college in that state, Stanford University, where he studied computer engineering.

His first job after graduation in 1987 was with a merchant bank in Toronto. He was there for three years before being recalled to Hongkong to join Hutchison.

Star TV, a joint-venture between Hutchison and the Li family, was born in 1990 amid much scepticism.

This was the first time satellite TV was being made available not for one bu t for 30-40 countries. It was an ambitious project which charted new ground.

There were as many doubting Thomases as there were teething problems. How ca n a free-to-air regional TV network succeed? Who is going to advertise in a medium where there is no independent means of gauging market penetration?

EVEN the Hongkong government, which has long wanted to make the territory a regional broadcasting beacon, was nervous. Despite the obstacles, things moved at a frenetic speed, no less because the younger Li was a taskmaster of the first order.

Five channels were launched, the premier ones being the news channel by the BBC, and the MTV music station which turned its Hongkong-based deejays into instant celebrities among teenyboppers from Bombay to Beijing.

In building up Star, Mr Li displayed the same entrepreneurial fleet-of-foot characteristic of his father.

He resisted the temptation to focus Star's marketing and distribution effort s on the lucrative Taiwan market, and showed a profit within 18 months.

This would have made Star the fourth Taiwanese TV station with a couple of million viewers rather than the pan-Asian platform it was to become, reaching out to 40 million homes.

Star also earned Mr Li a reputation as an upstart who wants what he wants when he wants it. There were reports of his temper, and how he reduced men twice his age to tears. He is said to scream and yell at meetings, a charge he does not deny but which he puts down to inevitable tension arising from brainstorming of ideas.

His supporters defended his aggressive style as necessary to keep the new company focused while his detractors dismissed them as the misplaced tantrums of a spoilt brat.

Most agreed that at the end of the day, they worked with him because he compensated them well for their efforts and he was doing something refreshingly new and challenging.

It is being said that he has mellowed considerably after Star's sale.

Pacific Century plans to bring innovative telecommunication services to corporations in the region in October.

If Star TV is any guide, the new company looks set to usher in the same revolutionary impact and reach for telecommunications in the region.

Catherine Ong, a senior correspondent with Business Times, was the paper's Hongkong correspondent for five years until May this year.

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