Around Asia, Li Ka-shingis watched as much for business acumen as his status as one of the region’s richest men. With his move on Friday to overhaul his business empire, the 86-year-old tycoon appears to have pulled off another masterstroke.

Investors yesterday gave his plans for a complete overhaul of his two main companies an emphatic thumbs-up, with double-digit rallies adding $11.5bn to their market capitalisation.

The market cheer followed Mr Li’s announcement late on Friday that he planned to merge his two main businesses — his flagship Cheung Kong group and blue-chip conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa — and then spin off the property assets to shareholders. The deal will provide a clean split between a conglomerate including telecoms, retail, infrastructure and energy, and the property which was the basis for his $34bn fortune.

Cheung Kong closed up 14.7 per cent and Hutchison gained 12.5 per cent in Hong Kong yesterday. All of which has left investors, bankers and analysts asking why Mr Li did not do this sooner.

A reorganisation of some sort has been a perennial topic of debate among Hong Kong dealmakers for at least a decade, while the absence of actual change has been the death of many an investor arbitrage strategy.

Analysts and dealmakers have produced a host of possible reasons for the timing of the deal. Some suggest it is related to succession planning, since Mr Li turns 87 this year. They also point to the possibility that Mr Li is seeking to free up capital for a target the group is quietly stalking; or that it is about escaping Hong Kong by moving the companies’ domicile to the Cayman Islands.

In terms of succession, Mr Li laid out his main plan two years ago, with eldest son Victor taking over his father’s stake in Cheung Kong — now to be a 30.15 per cent stake in each of the two new groups, Cheung Kong Hutchison and Cheung Kong Properties. “The new structure does make it simpler for Victor to take over,” says one merger specialist.

In choosing the Cayman Islands, Mr Li is following the more than 40 per cent of Hong Kong-listed companies already domiciled there, including groups such as Tencent, the Chinese internet group, and the listed units of many of China’s biggest state-owned enterprises.

The charge that he is seeking to escape Hong Kong is laid at Mr Li’s door whenever he rejigs part of his empire, which spans 52 countries. However, several people involved in the deal said planning began this summer. This would place the decision to proceed before the Occupy protests this autumn turned the spotlight on Hong Kong’s government and its connections with local tycoons.

“We do not believe this reflects on management’s view on the Hong Kong business environment,” says Danie Schutte, analyst at CLSA.

The companies themselves say the move is about releasing shareholder value trapped by the discounts inherent in their linked nature.

Analysts estimate that Cheung Kong tends to trade at about 50 per cent of its net asset value if its 49.97 per cent of Hutchison is excluded. Hutchison, meanwhile, averages an 18 per cent discount to its book value for being a conglomerate, according to CLSA, but before the news it was trading at a 37 per cent discount.

But the timing, according to both companies, was driven by their increasingly entwined businesses. This was brought to a head last year by Cheung Kong’s move into aircraft leasing — a business that more logically belonged among Hutchison’s mix of telecoms, retail, infrastructure, ports and energy.
The aircraft deal, however, helped alleviate a build-up of cash at Cheung Kong as the property-focused group struggled to find land at good prices.

“We found another business to put some money to work which was aircraft leasing. Then questions started to come up — ‘why are you in aircraft leasing? Are you not a property company any more?’ So it became clear to us that a decision needed to be made on how we were going to delineate the businesses,” said Gerald Ma, head of strategy at Cheung Kong.

The blurring lines in turn increased investor uncertainty over where to invest. “Its not like we came up with an idea and they [Cheung Kong] said ‘Oh we should have this’,” said Frank Sixt, chief finance officer of Hutchison. “But you do get to a situation . . . where shareholders are saying ‘Well, where’s the growth going to be in this group?’”

The new structure will be completed by June if shareholders and the courts approve. If speculation about a new deal target proves true, the proof of the new, more cleanly structured Li empire will come in watching how many pieces of the group end up involved in that new deal.

在亚洲，李嘉诚引人注目既是因为他是该地区最富有的人之一，也因为他敏锐的商业头脑。上周五，这位86岁的企业大亨提出重组其商业帝国的计划，此举似乎又是一步妙棋。

投资者昨日对他彻底重组旗下两家主要企业的计划明显表示赞成，两家上市公司的股价涨幅达到两位数，市值增加115亿美元。

在市场喝彩之前，李嘉诚于上周五下午宣布，计划将其旗舰企业长江实业(Cheung Kong Holdings)与蓝筹股综合企业和记黄埔(Hutchison Whampoa)合并，然后将房地产资产剥离给股东。这笔交易将实现包括电信、零售、基础设施和能源在内的综合企业与房地产的彻底分离。房地产曾是李嘉诚340亿美元财富的基础。

长江实业股价昨日在香港股市收涨14.7%，和记黄埔则上涨12.5%。所有这些都让投资者、银行人士和分析师不禁要问：李嘉诚为何没有早一点这么做？

至少10年来，重组一直是香港交易撮合者长期辩论的一个话题，而缺乏实际变化让很多投资者套利策略流产。

分析师和交易撮合者为李嘉诚选择此时进行重组提出了很多可能的理由。一些人认为，这与交接计划有关，因为今年李嘉诚就87岁了。他们还指出，李嘉诚可能在寻求为该集团悄悄逼近的一个收购目标腾出资金；或者可能是为了通过把公司的注册地迁到开曼群岛来逃离香港。

从接班的角度来看，李嘉诚两年前就提出了其主要计划，大儿子李泽钜将接管李嘉诚在长江实业的股权，也就是重组后在两个新公司长江和记实业(Cheung Kong Hutchison)和长江实业地产(Cheung Kong Properties)的持股比例将分别为30.15%。一位并购专家表示：“新的架构确实让李泽钜接班变得更为简单。”

在选择开曼群岛为注册地方面，李嘉诚效仿了超过40%的在港上市公司的做法，这些公司就是在开曼群岛注册，包括中国互联网集团腾讯(Tencent)以及很多中国最大国有企业的上市公司。

无论李嘉诚何时调整其覆盖52个国家的商业帝国的架构，都会有人抨击他试图逃离香港。然而，数位参与该交易的人士表示，该计划开始于去年夏季。这意味着在去年秋季“占中”抗议活动使得人们聚焦于香港政府及其与当地商业巨头的关系之前，重组决定已经作出。

里昂证券(CLSA)分析师丹尼尔•舒特(Danie Schutte)表示：“我们相信这并非反映了管理层对香港商业环境的看法。”

两家公司自己也表示，此举是为了消除从控股公司的关联性导致的折让，为股东释放价值。

分析师们估计，如果不考虑其持有的49.97%的和记黄埔的股份，长江实业的股价往往为每股净资产的50%左右。与此同时，里昂证券表示，综合集团和记黄埔的股价平均较其账面价值折让18%，但在重组消息曝出之前，该公司股价折让37%。
但按照这两家公司的说法，选择此时重组，是因为两家的业务日益交错。去年长江实业进入飞机租赁业务更是让这一点急剧凸显——从逻辑上来说，飞机租赁业务更应属于集电信、零售、基础设施、港口和能源于一身的和记黄埔。

然而，在以房地产为主的长江实业很难以合适价格拿到土地之际，飞机交易帮助其缓解了现金过多的问题。

长江实业企业战略主管Gerald Ma表示：“我们发现可以在另一个领域将一些资金投资利用起来，那就是飞机租赁业务。于是有人提出疑问，‘你们为什么进入飞机租赁领域？你们不再是一家房地产公司了吗？’因此我们明白了，有必要就如何明晰业务范围作出决定。”

模糊的业务界限让投资者更加不确定将资金投向哪里。和记黄埔首席财务官陆法兰(Frank Sixt)表示：“这不是我们提出一个想法，然后他们（长江实业）说‘哦，我们应该有这个想法’。但你的确会进入这样一种局面……股东会问，‘好吧，这家集团的增长方向在哪里？’”

如果获得股东和法庭的批准，重组将会在今年6月完成。如果对新收购目标的怀疑证明是真的，通过观察集团中最终有多少部分卷入这笔新交易，就可以了解李氏帝国的新架构是否真的变得更加清楚明晰。