The city’s chief executive said a deal between the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison and BlackRock, a major American investment firm, requires “serious attention.”

Hong Kong’s leader says his government opposes coercion by foreign governments, an allusion to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, but stopped short of criticizing a prominent local conglomerate’s decision to sell its Panama Canal port assets to a consortium including American investment bank BlackRock Inc.

Hong Kong leader John Lee on Tuesday said criticism of city conglomerate CK Hutchison's sale of its Panama Canal ports deserved "serious attention", after Beijing authorities repeatedly slammed the deal.

Lee Shau Kee was among the first generation of entrepreneurs in Hong Kong who started making a fortune from property development between the 60s and 70s.

- Henderson Land Development's founder and chairman Lee Shau Kee attends a news conference as he announces his retirement after the company's general meeting in Hong Kong, Tuesday, May 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung,

Sometimes called the Warren Buffett of Hong Kong, he made his billions by initially building apartments for middle-class descendants of mainland refugees.