Li & Fung

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Li & Fung Limited

Type

Public company

Traded as

SEHK: 0494

Industry

Supply chain management

Founded

1906

Headquarters

Hong Kong

Key people

Victor Fung, Chairman, William Fung, Managing Director, Bruce Rockowitz, President

Products

Apparel, household goods, furnishings,toys, health and beauty products

Revenue

US$20 billion

Website

www.lifung.com

Li & Fung Limited (Chinese: ) is a global trading group, based in Hong Kong, that supplies highvolume, time-sensitive consumer goods. Garments make up around two-thirds of the Li & Fung business which also covers the sourcing of hardgoods such as fashion accessories, furnishings, gifts, handicrafts, home products, promotional merchandise, toys, sporting goods and travel goods. As a supply chain manager across many producers and countries, Li & Fung provides product design and development, raw material and factory sourcing, production planning and management, quality assurance and export documentation to shipping consolidation.
Contents

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1 History 2 The business today 3 External links 4 References

[edit]History

The company was co-founded in 1906 by Fung Pak-liu, using capital saved from his job teaching English, and partner Mr Li. Based inGuangzhou (Canton), it was then an export trading operation, dealing in porcelain, fireworks, jade handicrafts and silk, mainly to the United States. In 1937 the firm incorporated in Hong Kong to take advantage of the British colony's oceangoing ships. After World War II, China closed for international business and the company refocused as an exporter of Hong Kong manufactured goods. It was now led by Fung Hon-chu, son of the founder and father of the present controlling brothers, William and Victor. Li & Fung became a big exporter of garments, toys, wigs and plastic flowers. William and Victor Fung were educated in the US and followed business careers there, before returning to join the family business in the early 1970s, as Li & Fung's broker role was being squeezed by both manufacturers and importers. They remade the company to provide value-added services in manufacturing, sourcing throughout Asia, including going back into re-emergent China. Later, sources from countries closer to target markets were sought out: Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, for the US; Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia for Europe. Li & Fung Ltd. went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1992.[1] Then the firm nearly tripled its size with the HK$475 million acquisition of Inchcape Buying Services (formerly known as Dodwell & Co.) in 1995. It was part of Inchcape plc, a British trading company with a network of offices in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The acquisition of Inchcape Buying Services, with its European customer base and sourcing points across the Indian subcontinent, balanced Li & Fung's American customer base and East Asian sourcing network..[2]
[edit]The

business today

Li & Fung is headquartered in Hong Kong from where it co-ordinates the manufacture of goods through a network of 70 offices in 40+ countries. While cost considerations have resulted in the concentration of manufacturing activities in Asia, recent years have seen an expansion of Li & Fung 's quick-response capabilities in areas like the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe andCentral America that are closer to customers in

Europe and the US. Instead of owning production facilities, Li & Fung manages a large number of independent producers (7500 as at 1998[3]). Li & Fung is a member of the Li & Fung Group of companies, which also includes privately held retailing and publicly listed consumer-goods distribution businesses in Asia such as Toys "R" Us and Circle K franchises.
[1]

With an annual turnover of around US$20 billion, Li & Fung (Trading) Limited employs about 15,000 people

worldwide. Control of the company remains focused in the hands of the founder's grandsons, Victor and William Fung, often known simply as the Fung brothers. Together they own 32% of the publicly traded company, as well as stakes in the private parent company.[4]