Kwok is chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kong's largest real estate developer. He was cleared of bribery charges in 2014, while his brother Thomas was sentenced to five years jail. Kwok owns about 18% of the company, which had revenue of HK$86 billion ($10.9 billion) in the year to June 30, 2018.
Raymond Kwok's net worth of $11.3B can buy ...
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The majority of Kwok's net worth is derived from Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kong's largest property developer. The publicly traded business was founded by his father, Kwok Tak-seng, who died in 1990.
Kwok Tak-Seng's heirs control 26% of the developer through trusts created by his widow, Kwong Siu-hing. Her net worth was divided equally among her three sons based on a 2014 email statement from the company.
Raymond Kwok is credited with a 19% stake, including one-third of his mother's share and about 7% held with his son through Credit Suisse Trustee, according to a December 2018 filing with the Hong Kong exchange. Another 4.4% is held in a trust for his sons, Edward and Christopher, and a nephew, Adam. A portion of that stake is included in the net worth calculation.
The billionaire has collected more than $1.3 billion in dividends based on an analysis of company filings and Bloomberg data as of December 2018. The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of these proceeds as well as insider transactions, taxes, charitable contributions and market performance.
Chris Liu, a spokesman for Sun Hung Kai, declined to comment on the billionaire’s net worth.
Father Kwok Tak-Seng, a grocery wholesaler from Guangdong, China, immigrated to Hong Kong after World War II. He joined Fung King Hey and Lee Shau Kee to create Sun Hung Kai Properties in 1963. The company sold shares in an initial public offering in Hong Kong in August 1972, and eventually became one of the world's largest real estate developers by market value.
Sun Hung Kai built and runs the 118-floor International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong’s tallest building at 1,588 feet. The group founded SmarTone, the first GSM mobile phone operator in Hong Kong, in 1993. The carrier listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange three years later.
Kwok's three sons -- Walter, Thomas and Raymond -- took over the company after he died from a heart attack in 1990. Walter ran the company until 2008 when a high-profile squabble gripped the family, leading to the ouster of Walter as chairman by his two younger brothers. Walter said that Thomas and Raymond tried to remove him because he was suffering from mental illness, which he denied. He later sued his siblings for libel.
Thomas and Raymond won the boardroom battle and became co-chairmen of Sun Hung Kai after their mother, Kwong Siu-hing, took charge briefly. Walter, who remains a non-executive director, applied to the High Court in 2008 to prevent the board from removing him from office, alleging that his brothers opposed his questioning of the way the company awarded construction contracts, and other corporate governance issues. Walter and the family settled their dispute amicably in January 2014.
Thomas and Raymond were arrested in March 2012 by Hong Kong's anti-graft agency, and were charged with bribery and misconduct in public office with Rafael Hui Si-yan, Hong Kong's then No. 2 government official four months after. Raymond was cleared of all charges, while Thomas was convicted of conspiring to commit misconduct involving HK$8.5 million worth of illegal payments, and sentenced to five years in jail.
Thomas pled not guilty and his second appeal of the conviction was dismissed in February 2016. According to the South China Morning Post, the same legal team would help Kwok fight the final appeal.