Who is Nina Wang?
Posted: 2007-04-05 13:02
Who is (was) this creature? Any HongKong Tong knows her Chinese name?
Nina Wang, 69; Headed Hong Kong Business Empire
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 5, 2007; B08
Nina Wang, 69, who became one of Asia's richest women after inheriting a fortune from her missing husband's estate and was a media sensation during a subsequent, often lurid, fight for control of his business empire, died April 3 in Hong Kong. She reportedly had ovarian cancer.
This year, Forbes magazine listed her fortune at $4.2 billion, making her one of the most powerful, if peculiar, business figures in the world.
She gained prominence in her own right in 1990 after her husband, Teddy, disappeared, reportedly at the hands of gangsters. She used her power of attorney and position as company co-director to guide the growth of Chinachem, a real estate and chemical conglomerate started by her husband's father.
For years, she resisted attempts to declare her husband dead. She said she was grief-stricken but doing so also kept her in control of the business. Until he was legally pronounced dead in 1999, she was accused of using her income to buy more shares of Chinachem to prevent her father-in-law -- and chief adversary -- from resuming power.
Chinachem, the largest privately held real estate company in Hong Kong, has hundreds of high-rise office and apartment towers. Its holdings also include a Taiwan shipping company, meat-packing plants in China and entertainment companies in Asia and North America. Mrs. Wang had ambitions to erect the tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong -- at 108 stories -- and name it the Nina Tower, but planning authorities foiled the idea in 2001 because of height restrictions near the airport. A scaled-down version of the Nina Tower is under construction.
Mrs. Wang was one of the most mysterious and discussed people in Hong Kong and beyond. A workaholic who professed to be shy, she was dubbed "Little Sweetie" after a Japanese comic character because of her fondness for colorful micro-miniskirts ("because I have great legs"), dyed hair and pigtails that shot out of her head like antennae. A pixieish 5 feet tall, she kept her German shepherd, Wei Wei, close by.
She commissioned a comic book about her escapades to capitalize on her notoriety, yet she was said to lead a simple life in many ways. She favored KFC chicken and McDonald's fish sandwiches over posh nightspots, and cheap clothes over chic designs.
Kung Yu-sum was born Sept. 29, 1937, in Shanghai, where her father worked in the customs and excise department and her mother was a doctor.
At 11, she began dating Wang Din-shin's 16-year-old son, who was later known as Teddy. Wang Din-shin was a chemical and import businessman who moved the business that became Chinachem to Hong Kong after World War II.
Nina and Teddy Wang, who married in 1955, became majority shareholders of Chinachem. Teddy Wang helped turn his father's business into a larger concern. Chinachem especially prospered by buying inexpensive land in the New Territories region of Hong Kong and building housing during a huge population spurt in the 1970s.
The Wangs became one of the leading couples in the Hong Kong business orbit. They also were cautious because their wealth made them targets of extortionists and kidnappers.
In April 1983, Wang was taken hostage in his Mercedes on his way to the office. He was bound and gagged and chained for days. Mrs. Wang agreed to an $11 million ransom. The gang was later arrested after Wang told police that he saw a sticker that read "Jesus Loves You" on the van that took him, and that he remembered the first two letters of the license plate.
Wang, known as a skinflint, was said to have scolded his wife for paying too much. They were both noted for stingy behavior, with one report suggesting they never returned Tupperware borrowed from friends.
Wang was in the same Mercedes when he was kidnapped after leaving Hong Kong's prestigious Jockey Club in 1990. Mrs. Wang paid $34 million as a first installment of the $60 million the kidnappers demanded. Her husband never reappeared.
A later report suggested that gangsters took Wang and tossed him from a motorboat into the South China Sea to elude police during a water chase. Although there were many arrests, no one was charged with the kidnapping, and a body was never found.
Mrs. Wang assumed control of her husband's fortune and of Chinachem, eventually holding nearly all of the company's shares.
Her father-in-law, Wang Din-shin, took her to court. He said he had been his son's sole beneficiary since 1968, when he alleged that his son hired a detective to follow his wife and found her having an affair with a warehouse manager. Wang Din-shin later said his daughter-in-law had a "wicked heart."
Mrs. Wang rarely spoke in public about the legal dispute and used a lawyer to accuse her father-in-law of keeping a concubine -- banned in Hong Kong since the 1960s -- and smoking opium. He admitted to both at trial.
Mrs. Wang said her husband revised his will a month before he disappeared in 1990 and gave her control over everything. This was reputedly witnessed by a butler, who soon died of natural causes.
"One life, one love," the 1990 document said in one florid passage. "She is the one I love most in this world. After my death, all my property, even my body, belongs to my wife."
The battle over the revised will's authenticity continued, at one point consuming 172 days of legal proceedings, Hong Kong's longest civil trial. A Hong Kong court ruled in 2002 that the 1990 will was a fake "probably" forged by Nina Wang.
The judge was skeptical of why Wang would draw up a will without a lawyer and use romantic language. Wang Din-shin testified his son was too business-like to do that, and the judge agreed.
In 2005, five judges on Hong Kong's top court reversed the lower court ruling and granted Mrs. Wang the estate once and for all. She also was cleared of forgery charges brought by prosecutors.
She enjoyed watching films, particularly westerns and Elvis Presley musicals.
Nina Wang, 69; Headed Hong Kong Business Empire
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 5, 2007; B08
Nina Wang, 69, who became one of Asia's richest women after inheriting a fortune from her missing husband's estate and was a media sensation during a subsequent, often lurid, fight for control of his business empire, died April 3 in Hong Kong. She reportedly had ovarian cancer.
This year, Forbes magazine listed her fortune at $4.2 billion, making her one of the most powerful, if peculiar, business figures in the world.
She gained prominence in her own right in 1990 after her husband, Teddy, disappeared, reportedly at the hands of gangsters. She used her power of attorney and position as company co-director to guide the growth of Chinachem, a real estate and chemical conglomerate started by her husband's father.
For years, she resisted attempts to declare her husband dead. She said she was grief-stricken but doing so also kept her in control of the business. Until he was legally pronounced dead in 1999, she was accused of using her income to buy more shares of Chinachem to prevent her father-in-law -- and chief adversary -- from resuming power.
Chinachem, the largest privately held real estate company in Hong Kong, has hundreds of high-rise office and apartment towers. Its holdings also include a Taiwan shipping company, meat-packing plants in China and entertainment companies in Asia and North America. Mrs. Wang had ambitions to erect the tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong -- at 108 stories -- and name it the Nina Tower, but planning authorities foiled the idea in 2001 because of height restrictions near the airport. A scaled-down version of the Nina Tower is under construction.
Mrs. Wang was one of the most mysterious and discussed people in Hong Kong and beyond. A workaholic who professed to be shy, she was dubbed "Little Sweetie" after a Japanese comic character because of her fondness for colorful micro-miniskirts ("because I have great legs"), dyed hair and pigtails that shot out of her head like antennae. A pixieish 5 feet tall, she kept her German shepherd, Wei Wei, close by.
She commissioned a comic book about her escapades to capitalize on her notoriety, yet she was said to lead a simple life in many ways. She favored KFC chicken and McDonald's fish sandwiches over posh nightspots, and cheap clothes over chic designs.
Kung Yu-sum was born Sept. 29, 1937, in Shanghai, where her father worked in the customs and excise department and her mother was a doctor.
At 11, she began dating Wang Din-shin's 16-year-old son, who was later known as Teddy. Wang Din-shin was a chemical and import businessman who moved the business that became Chinachem to Hong Kong after World War II.
Nina and Teddy Wang, who married in 1955, became majority shareholders of Chinachem. Teddy Wang helped turn his father's business into a larger concern. Chinachem especially prospered by buying inexpensive land in the New Territories region of Hong Kong and building housing during a huge population spurt in the 1970s.
The Wangs became one of the leading couples in the Hong Kong business orbit. They also were cautious because their wealth made them targets of extortionists and kidnappers.
In April 1983, Wang was taken hostage in his Mercedes on his way to the office. He was bound and gagged and chained for days. Mrs. Wang agreed to an $11 million ransom. The gang was later arrested after Wang told police that he saw a sticker that read "Jesus Loves You" on the van that took him, and that he remembered the first two letters of the license plate.
Wang, known as a skinflint, was said to have scolded his wife for paying too much. They were both noted for stingy behavior, with one report suggesting they never returned Tupperware borrowed from friends.
Wang was in the same Mercedes when he was kidnapped after leaving Hong Kong's prestigious Jockey Club in 1990. Mrs. Wang paid $34 million as a first installment of the $60 million the kidnappers demanded. Her husband never reappeared.
A later report suggested that gangsters took Wang and tossed him from a motorboat into the South China Sea to elude police during a water chase. Although there were many arrests, no one was charged with the kidnapping, and a body was never found.
Mrs. Wang assumed control of her husband's fortune and of Chinachem, eventually holding nearly all of the company's shares.
Her father-in-law, Wang Din-shin, took her to court. He said he had been his son's sole beneficiary since 1968, when he alleged that his son hired a detective to follow his wife and found her having an affair with a warehouse manager. Wang Din-shin later said his daughter-in-law had a "wicked heart."
Mrs. Wang rarely spoke in public about the legal dispute and used a lawyer to accuse her father-in-law of keeping a concubine -- banned in Hong Kong since the 1960s -- and smoking opium. He admitted to both at trial.
Mrs. Wang said her husband revised his will a month before he disappeared in 1990 and gave her control over everything. This was reputedly witnessed by a butler, who soon died of natural causes.
"One life, one love," the 1990 document said in one florid passage. "She is the one I love most in this world. After my death, all my property, even my body, belongs to my wife."
The battle over the revised will's authenticity continued, at one point consuming 172 days of legal proceedings, Hong Kong's longest civil trial. A Hong Kong court ruled in 2002 that the 1990 will was a fake "probably" forged by Nina Wang.
The judge was skeptical of why Wang would draw up a will without a lawyer and use romantic language. Wang Din-shin testified his son was too business-like to do that, and the judge agreed.
In 2005, five judges on Hong Kong's top court reversed the lower court ruling and granted Mrs. Wang the estate once and for all. She also was cleared of forgery charges brought by prosecutors.
She enjoyed watching films, particularly westerns and Elvis Presley musicals.
