ONE of America's wealthiest men could have his luxury yacht evicted from its Causeway Bay buoy if cargo ships cannot find anywhere else to off-load.
Too big to squeeze into the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter, multi-billionaire John Kluge's yacht The Virginian has been given an extension by the Marine Department to use a mid-stream buoy usually used by cargo ships.
However, department sources said it was extremely rare for a pleasure craft to sit at such a buoy and officials would have little option but to evict the vessel if the buoy were needed for urgent off-loading.
Mr Kluge, 78, was considered America's wealthiest man at the start of the decade but was rated by Forbes in July as the 15th richest person worldwide.
He is now understood to be cruising the world on the three-storey, 40-metre vessel which arrived in Hong Kong from China on December 27.
The magazine estimates the thrice-married Kluge's personal fortune to be US$5.5 billion (HK$42.9 billion) - nearly twice that of Li Ka-shing and the Kadoorie family together.
Kluge's Metromedia empire includes Orion Pictures, which made Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs, and long-distance telephone carriers. However, profits have diminished with a recent move into budget steak-houses across the United States.