Houston Community News >> Will of Asia Richest Woman in Dispute
4/20/2007 HONG KONG -- Nina
Wang, Asia's richest woman at the time of her death, left her $4 billion fortune
to a master of feng shui, the Chinese belief that fortunes can be improved by
timing and the layout of objects, such as furniture, according to the man's
lawyer.
The pigtailed Hong Kong businesswoman, who died this month, chose Chan Chun-chuen
because he understood her personal and her business philosophy, said Jonathan
Midgley, a lawyer for the Haldanes firm.
The firm published a newspaper notice Friday saying Wang left her estate to Chan
in a will dated Oct. 16, 2006.
Hong Kong media described him as a feng shui master, but Midgley said at a news
conference on Friday that Chan is a 48-year-old real-estate investor who
practices feng shui as a hobby. Haldanes released a photo of Wang and Chan
together in the early 1990s.
Feng shui is the ancient Chinese practice of trying to achieve health, harmony
and prosperity by using specific dates, numbers, building design and the
placement of objects.
It was the second claim to Wang's fortune, estimated at $4.2 billion by Forbes
magazine.
On Thursday, Hong Kong's Next magazine published the image of a typewritten will
allegedly signed by Wang and dated July 28, 2002, leaving her fortune to the
Chinachem Charitable Foundation Ltd., named after her company Chinachem Group.
In the purported will, Wang says she wanted the charity to set up a Chinese
version of the Nobel prizes. Spokeswoman Wendy Law at the charity's law firm,
Johnson Stokes & Master, declined comment Friday.
At a news conference, Midgley said his client "believes that he understood her
(Nina Wang's) philosophy, both her personal philosophy and her philosophy in
running her businesses."
Chan did not attend the conference.
The development echoes Wang's court battle with her father-in-law over her
kidnapped husband's estate.
Teddy Wang, who founded the Chinachem Group pharmaceutical company, was abducted
in 1990 as he left Hong Kong's exclusive Jockey Club. The family paid a $33
million ransom but he was never returned.
Several of the kidnappers were caught and said that the 56-year-old Wang had
been thrown into the sea from the small Chinese boat where he was held. His body
was never found and he was declared dead in 1999.
In his absence, Nina Wang built Chinachem into a real-estate empire, with office
towers and apartment complexes throughout Hong Kong. Her standing came under
threat when Wang Din-shin challenged her claim to his late son's fortune.
Wang Din-shin said he was the sole beneficiary of Teddy Wang's estate based on a
1968 will.
He questioned the will Nina Wang produced, which was dated just a month before
her husband disappeared and left her everything. A Hong Kong judge ruled in
November 2002 that Nina Wang's will was forged.
But in 2005, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal reversed the ruling that gave
Teddy Wang's estate to his father. Nina Wang was also cleared of forgery charges
in December 2005.
Wang was 69 when she died on April 3, reportedly after a battle with ovarian
cancer. She is survived by a younger brother and two younger sisters.
(Contributed by LATimes.com)