Sun Hung Kai boss employed 10 people 'to please female friend'
Walter Kwok Ping-sheung, chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, hired up to 10 middle-ranking employees to please his female friend, sources have claimed.
The staff were personal friends of the married Mr Kwok's close friend, Ida Tong Kam-hing, 61, and recruited in departments focusing on mainland investment, land acquisition and leasing, according to one well-placed source.
These employees allegedly used their direct access to the chairman several times to advise him to buy various sites in Beijing which were 20 to 30 per cent above the market value.
If the purchases had been approved, they would have scooped commissions from the sellers for negotiating the exorbitant prices.
However, the deals were never completed because vice-chairman Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong and managing director Raymond Kwok Ping-luen vetoed the purchases.
Some of the employees are still with the company, but they will be weeded out now that the 57-year-old chairman has stepped down temporarily from his position.
Hong Kong's biggest property developer shocked the business community when it announced last Monday that its chairman - one of three brothers who control the company - would take a 'leave of absence' with immediate effect.
His two brothers will assume his duties. Since the announcement, a series of revelations have emerged about the reason behind the decision.
The other brothers were apparently unhappy at the influence Ms Tong was having over their older brother's decision-making and her own ambitions for the company.
Unable to tolerate the situation any longer, the younger brothers asked their mother, Kwong Siu-hing, to pass judgment in the family 'court'. Ms Kwong holds the largest stake in Sun Hung Kai through a family trust.
These revelations come as company records reveal that Walter Kwok has applied to change the name of a company he registered on January 23, called Sun Hung Kai Properties International Limited, on the day he announced he was stepping down from the company.
