| Richard Li | ||||||
Richard Li, chairman of Hong Kong-based Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), is rewriting his CV. But he’s not just updating his work experience and leisure activities. He has to make a major alteration to his qualifications.
Having claimed for the past 14 years that he was a graduate of Stanford with a very solid bachelor of science degree in computer engineering, Li has admitted this is not the case. It turns out he’s nothing more than a good old-fashioned university drop-out who left the course nine months before it ended.
Many people who commit this kind of faux pas are asked by the boss to vacate the building quietly, but since Li is the boss – and a very high profile one – he has had to face the wrath of the media instead. “It’s a bloody stupid thing to have done,” says one banker in Hong Kong. “But the PR machine of PCCW has always been about pride and protecting egos. So if a chink in the armour is found he is always going to get whacked.”
Now Li has to face up to disgruntled investors across a courtroom. Li is a director of an Indian website called Rediff.com, and several of its investors have launched a class action against the company – shares in which have fallen from a high of $28 last year to around $4 at the end of April. They claim that they wouldn’t have been interested in the company’s IPO on Nasdaq last June had they known that there was someone on the board of directors who only managed to graduate from high school.
Alongside Li, underwriters Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston and Robert Fleming also stand accused. A source at one of the banks cited reckons: “this case is so off the wall it’s a joke. It has absolutely no merit.
The investors heard about the controversy and have been totally opportunistic. The price of Rediff.com dropped long before Li was found out.”
US investors in PCCW may be also be about to start snapping at the hand that used to feed them. If 100 fellow mutineers come forward, a similar action may be launched as early as this month.
