Asian tycoon left legacy to fortune-teller

HONG KONG: Asia’s richest woman left her wealth to her fortune-teller in her last known will which is all but certain to spark a huge legal battle with relatives, Hong Kong media reported Thursday.

Nina Wang, who died aged 69 earlier this month and had no children, left a legacy estimated as worth at least 4.2 billion US dollars after transforming her company Chinachem into a real estate empire.

A day after her lavish funeral Wednesday, two wills she allegedly wrote in 2002 and 2006 were published separately in Next Magazine and its sister Apple Daily publication.

The 2002 document said Wang’s fortune would go to her charitable trust. But the later version named her personal fortune teller, Chan Chun Chuen, as the beneficiary.

Citing unnamed sources close to the family, Apple Daily said Wang’s family and senior aides were unfamiliar with Chan and upset by the new will and were set to take the issue to court. If true, the 2006 document would have been penned two years after Wang was diagnosed with cancer and after she won an eight-year court battle against her father-in-law for control of her late husband Teddy Wang’s estate.

He disppeared in 1990 after being kidnapped. His body was never found, and he was declared dead nine years later.

Meanwhile, Next Magazine published a two-page will provided by a friend of Wang and supposedly written in Chinese in 2002.

It named no beneficiary but indicated that her assets will go to a charity trust she set up with Teddy Wang before he disappeared.

HongKong, Thursday, AFP