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Little Sweetie's steady rise to the top

A fortune of US$2.3b, but Nina Wang eats at McDonald's

Nina 'Little Sweetie' Wang Kung Yu-sum has been described as Hong Kong's most eccentric billionaire, and the richest woman in Asia and Britain - five times richer than Queen Elizabeth at one point.

Forbes magazine estimated her personal worth at US$2.3 billion last year and Fortune magazine named her one of the five most-powerful businesswomen in Asia in 1998 and as one of the 50 most-powerful in the world outside the United States in 2002.

The petite 67-year-old - famous for her unconventional dress sense and three tightly braided pigtails, which she recently traded for a cropped hairstyle - has enough clout to have been on the selection committee for the chief executive and a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. She once recalled receiving a letter addressed simply 'Kung Yu-sum, Hong Kong'.

Despite such a massive fortune, Nina Wang and her late husband Teddy Wang Teh-huei were known for being so tight-fisted they bought cut-price tickets to shows. She has said she shops at factory outlets and often eats McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, keeping her monthly expenditure below $2,800.

The rise of Nina Wang began in 1990 when her husband was kidnapped from his Mercedes outside the Hong Kong Jockey Club, never to be seen again.

She refused to accept his death until her father-in-law, Wang Din-shin, urged the courts to declare his son dead in 1999, but she stepped into his shoes as chairman of the Chinachem group.

With her at the helm, the company created a vast portfolio of offices, shopping centres, apartment blocks, cinemas and industrial sites. In 2001, her dream of building the world's tallest skyscraper was shattered by the government's height restriction for buildings close to the airport. She maintains a number of properties bearing her first name, including the forthcoming Nina Tower, to open in Tsuen Wan in September.

The probate hearing over Teddy Wang's estate provided plenty of fodder for followers of Nina Wang's eccentricity. Allegations of sex, lies, abuse and a myriad personal anecdotes - even nicknames such as 'silly pig' that Wang called his wife - emerged.

She never testified, but her father-in-law, who said she had a 'wicked heart', revealed intimate details of her life, including claims she was found with contraceptive pills despite his son being infertile. Her father later said she had confessed to having an affair in 1968 with a warehouse boss.

Nina Wang, however, hit back through her lawyer, accusing her father-in-law of being a womaniser, an opium-smoker and of costing Chinachem vast sums and of mismanaging the company. The struggle for the $27 billion estate is set to continue as she has been granted leave to take the case to the Court of Final Appeal.

She has, however, claimed she would give away her entire fortune to charity when she died.

CHANGING FORTUNES

1960: Teddy Wang Teh-huei's first will divides the estate equally between his father, Wang Din-shin, and wife, Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum

1963: Nina Wang gains power of attorney

March 15, 1968: New will names Wang Din-shin as the sole executor and beneficiary of his son's estate after Wang suspects his wife of infidelity. Will is put in safety deposit box

1983: Wang is kidnapped and released after payment of $75 million ransom

March 10, 1990: Wang admitted to hospital after a horse-riding accident in which he suffers head and arm injuries

March 12, 1990: Date of new will, ruled by the court to be a forgery, which names Nina Wang sole executor and beneficiary of the fortune

April 10, 1990: Wang is abducted and never seen again

April 22, 1997: Safety deposit box is opened in the presence of Inland Revenue Department officers and the 1968 will found

September 22, 1999: Court declares Wang legally dead upon urging from Wang Din-shin. It is believed his body was dumped in the South China Sea by gangsters. Wang Din-shin is now free to seek probate. Nina Wang counterclaims

August 6, 2001: Day one of Hong Kong's longest civil trial (172 days)

November 21, 2002: Judgment delivered; the 1990 will is a fake and Nina Wang is ordered to pay 85 per cent of the legal costs

December 11, 2002: Nina Wang is arrested and questioned by Commercial Crime Bureau over the alleged forging of her late husband's will

December 12, 2002: Released on $5 million bail

September 29, 2003: Opening submissions in appeal against judgment

June 28, 2004: Court of Appeal dismisses Nina Wang's appeal

November 2, 2004: Administrators of Mr Wang's estate launch legal action against Nina Wang over a property development firm formed in 1975, asking her to account for $14 million the firm earned over the past 12 years

November 17, 2004: Nina Wang given leave to take the case to the Court of Final Appeal

Nina and Teddy Wang (bottom), Teddy's father, Wang Din-shin, and Nina Wang beside her self-named tower in Tsuen Wan.

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