Last checked at 
* Fok, 36 years at Li's group, behind most big deals
* Fok planned the group overhaul announced on Jan. 9
* He is Hong Kong's top tax payer for 5 years -report
* Has a reputation as a fast, persuasive negotiator
By Denny Thomas
HONG KONG, Jan 22 (Reuters) - In late summer 2014, as massprotests rocked central Hong Kong, Canning Fok sat in his officequietly planning a business overhaul that would make his boss LiKa-shing, Asia's richest man, richer still.
After Li revealed the fruits of Fok's labour on Jan. 9,describing it as a "watershed" moment in the history of hisbusiness group, shares in his principal companies, Cheung KongHoldings and Hutchison Whampoa, jumped morethan 14 percent.
For three months, Fok worked with his core five-member teamon "Project Diamond" to put the basic structure in place, thenrecruited HSBC to execute the plan, people familiarwith the matter told Reuters.
The overhaul, aimed at tackling a valuation discount causedby the group's conglomerate structure, will split 86-year-oldLi's empire into two camps, one focusing on property, and theother housing businesses including telecoms, infrastructure andports.
"The Li family decided the timing, and then Canning tookover," one person who has worked with the family said. Fok, whois currently on a road-show to win shareholder support for thedeal, declined to comment through a Hutchison spokesman.
Fok, now 63, had been an auditor at Arthur Andersen when hewrote directly to Li asking for a job 36 years ago. Li gave Foka personal hearing and hired him for Cheung Kong, according to aGerman newspaper. He impressed with his calm effectiveness androse through the ranks to become Li's most trusted lieutenantand the family's Mr Fix It.
When Fok, backed by his "brains trust" team, is sold on aproposal, he takes it to Li and his son Victor for theirapproval and is rarely turned down, the sources said.
THE FIELD MARSHAL
Fok has been behind most of the group's big deals of thepast two decades, including the purchase of Orange Austria andTelefonica's Irish business, selling out of its Indiantelecom venture and bringing in State Grid Corp of China as a key investor in the initial public offering ofgroup company HK Electric Investments.
In all these deals, Fok has personally led the negotiations,relying on his network of top-level contacts, the sources said.He has on occasion taken a private jet to close a deal - hisown, since Hutchison, where he is group managing director, doesnot have a corporate jet.
"Canning is the field marshal, and he controls the Li empire," said a person familiar with Fok's negotiations.
In a region where M&A is often painfully slow, Fok is notedfor his persuasiveness and an ability to deliver in a hurry.
Last year as the group's health and beauty retailer A.S.Watson was preparing to list on the market, Fok decided togamble on an alternative fundraising avenue that would avoid theuncertainty of an IPO and bring in the kudos of a big globalfund.
He called Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, which had been looking to buy a small stake in theIPO, and convinced its leaders over a brief series of meetingsto sign their biggest ever deal, paying $5.7 billion for a 25percent stake. Failure could have wrecked the listing.
"HONG KONG HEART"
He also has a reputation for sticking to his guns onpricing. When he tested buyers' interest in Hong Kongsupermarket operator ParkNShop in 2013, he set a $3 billionprice tag. Though he got offers just 10 percent shy of that sum,he walked away, according to people who have worked with him.
Though Fok has been instrumental in building Li's empire toa behemoth spanning 50 countries, with listed companies worthmore than $100 billion, he keeps his cards close to his chest.
"He comes across a little bit enigmatic. He's really quiet,listens a lot," said a person who has worked on several of Li'sdeals.
That makes him "a very good chess player" when it comes tonegotiations, the person said.
He hasn't always had things his own way - his big push intoEuropean telecoms has yet to deliver - but he has been richlyrewarded for his service, making him Hong Kong's biggestindividual tax payer for the past five years, according to localmedia reports.
At home, as at work, the married father of four doesn't dothings by halves. A keen musician, he has five pianos, one ofthem 200 years old, according to a local media report, and wrotethe music and lyrics, including the title track, for eight songson the "Hong Kong Heart" album by singer Irene A. (Additional reporting by Alice Du, Elzio Barreto and LawrenceWhite; Editing by Will Waterman)
