$120m latin dance contract all in the footwork ... if you can get it How much has HSBC been awarding its top private banker? Enough, to pay a top Latin dance tutor, which in Hong Kong doesn't come cheaply. Most of Hong Kong - with the possible exception of Latin dance lovers such as the wives of Stanley Ho Hung-sun and Gordon Wu Ying-sheung - was staggered by just how much a reputable Latin dancer can command here. In the High Court, it was revealed that HSBC banker Monica Wong had signed a near $120 million arrangement with Latin dancers Mirko Saccani and his wife Gaynor Fairweather for unlimited classes over the next eight years. The HSBC Private Bank chief executive Asia has already paid $62 million for the classes and competition fees in the three academic years of 2004-7 and the subsequent five years of 2007-12. A back of the envelope calculation shows that Ms Wong, who has been at HSBC since 1983, was paying more than $41,000 per day for her eight-year tuition. Expensive as it may seem, the court proceedings revealed that Ms Wong, 60, had already talked the lesson price down from an initial offer of $400 million for a 12-year commitment. To make the best use of the service, Ms Wong occasionally booked six classes per day, seven days a week. But she is now seeking the remaining balance after quitting the lessons when she overheard her tutor calling her a 'lazy cow' which she found 'humiliating'. Lai See has had the privilege of seeing Ms Wong perform in her company-sponsored stage version of Moulin Rouge last year, and was impressed: now, even more so, knowing exactly how much she pays for her hobby. agm latecomer languishes in lockout Normally, it's better late than never, but not in Stanley Ho's dictionary. At Shun Tak Holdings' annual general meeting yesterday, an angry shareholder, named Mr Wong, sought help from the media - corralled, as usual, in the bull pen - because he wasn't allowed to go in with his proxy form. A spokeswoman for Computershare - the company that organises the logistics for many Hong Kong AGMs - said her firm was told by Shun Tak to stop checking in shareholders beyond 3pm to avoid disruption. Computershare, it seems, had no way of verifying he was a shareholder after it had switched off the computer. We were told by shareholders attending the AGM that chairman Stanley was there, but his disgruntled sister Winnie wasn't. We can only guess she might also have been late, perhaps. rumblings across the boardrooms The conviction of solicitor Andrew Lam Ping-cheung on the Semtech International Holdings case must have sent a few seismic shockwaves through more than a few small listed companies. Ten listed companies have Mr Lam as a board member - nine as an independent non-executive director and one as a non-executive director. Now, however, he's in custody. Lam was a director at Golden Resources Development International for 15 years and was appointed to the board of Goldwiz Holdings four weeks ago. rent a reporter, no question Get a load of this for 'lai see' reporting. A Shanghai property firm held a press conference yesterday to announce a strategic partnership with two foreign companies. A woman from the firm rang up our Shanghai office in the morning to confirm whether our humble paper would be attending. 'Who will be filing the story?' 'A foreigner.' 'Will he accept a payment?' 'No, our newspaper does not allow that.' 'But all the other reporters will be accepting one. They will be asking questions we give them. What about your reporter?' 'He will ask what he wants. Have you not dealt with the non-mainland media before?' Have snout will travel! And we're reliably informed that on the mainland, developers have the deepest troughs in the business.