Lawyer: Nina's fortune not going to charity

Lawyer: Nina's fortune not going to charity
April 10, 2007




SPECULATION over who will inherit Hong Kong tycoon Nina Wang's billions took a new twist yesterday.

Her lawyer told the Hong Kong media that reports she had left her huge wealth to charity were wrong.

'There's an individual beneficiary named in the will, not a charity as some reports suggest,' said her lawyer, Mr Jonathan Midgely.


He would not reveal the identity of the beneficiary, reported Apple Daily Hong Kong.

Mrs Wang, the chairman of property empire Chinachem, died of ovarian cancer last Tuesday, aged 69, leaving behind a US$4.2 billion ($6.36b) fortune and no children.

As she never named a beneficiary publicly, Hong Kong media speculated her money would go to charity.

Earlier reports said she had divided her wealth into three parts, with her family and a charity fund of her Chinachem group among the beneficiaries.

The largest portion will be given to China for economic development, said a source then.

Mrs Wang had become rich after inheriting her late husband Teddy Wang's Chinachem Group real estate business, which she built up into one of the city's largest private companies.

But Asia's richest woman also had to fight an eight-year court battle with her father-in-law over the fortune, which became hotly disputed after Teddy disappeared, believed to be kidnapped, in 1990.

Following long drawn-out court battles, she finally inherited her late husband's Chinachem empire, after taking her case to the Court of Final Appeal.

She will be buried in a Catholic funeral on 18 Apr.