Poor little rich girl

Nina Wang was reputedly the richest woman in Asia. But all that money did not buy her love or happiness. Her husband, Teddy Wang Teh-huei, was kidnapped and presumed murdered in 1990, and she spent most of her last decade engaged in bitter legal wrangles with his father, Wang Din-shin. The reclusive 69-year-old billionairess, who died on Tuesday, was seldom seen in public. The people closest to her in the years before her death were the 50 bodyguards who stood vigilant watch over her day and night. The reading of her will disposing of her personal fortune, estimated at HK$32.7 billion by Forbes magazine, is now awaited with fascination by many people. Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum said often that she chose not to have children because her wealth would bring problems to them. She vowed to leave her enormous fortune to charity. If that promise is kept, the total bequests will be substantial. Her life story was so remarkable it could have been the plot of a movie. Wang and her husband were both born in Shanghai and came to Hong Kong in the early 1950s. Childhood friends, they were married when Wang was 18. Teddy Wang, an astute entrepreneur with a flair for putting together deals, created the Chinachem conglomerate through a series of real estate deals. By 1983, he was known as one of Hong Kong's leading business figures. His fame proved to be expensive. In 1983, a gang kidnapped him. Nina Wang paid the US$11 million ransom and he was freed. Seven years later, kidnappers struck again. After Teddy Wang left his home on The Peak on April 10, 1990, he was grabbed by an armed gang. Nina Wang and the family paid half of a US$60 million ransom demanded. But Teddy Wang was never seen again. Police investigations led to the arrest of five men. Four were jailed for long terms by Hong Kong courts. A fifth was acquitted. Two other men, one a Hong Kong triad and the other a former officer of Taiwan's Bureau of Investigation stationed in Hong Kong, were in 1992 sentenced to life imprisonment in Taipei for the kidnapping. There were murky rumours of who was behind the snatch. Teddy Wang's body is said to have been thrown into the sea by his captors as they fled Hong Kong Island by boat. The body has never been found and he was eventually declared dead on September 22, 1999. Long before that happened, Nina Wang had taken over the reins at Chinachem. Her business cards proclaimed her 'chairlady'. She swiftly proved to have a shrewd and skilful business brain. Under her guidance - and sometimes in the face of opposition from other board members - Chinachem, a private company of which she owned 90 per cent, grew and diversified. Apart from significant real estate holdings in Hong Kong, there are biotechnology companies in California and factories on the mainland. Under her, Chinachem built office towers, shopping centres, apartment blocks, cinemas and industrial sites. A tiny woman who stood a whisker above 1.5 metres, her ambitions during one of the happier periods of her life soared towards the heavens. In 1996 she disclosed plans to build the world's tallest skyscraper. The 108-storey Nina Tower was to be modelled on the art deco Chrysler Building in Manhattan and would rise 470 metres above Tsuen Wan. She told reporters she planned to spend HK$1 billion on the building. It was never constructed - a failure blamed on opposition from government town planners. That same year, the woman who was said to be the fifth richest female on the planet, was seen in New York queuing for a single theatre seat at a cut-price outlet. Going to the theatre by herself and staying in a cramped room in a modest hotel summed up her lonely personal life. Her best friends may have been her dogs. She often took her German shepherd, Wei Wei, to the office. Her Dalmatian and dachshund stayed at home. Despite her billions, Nina Wang was fabled for her frugality. She seldom went to beauty parlours - they cost too much in both time and money. She kept her trademark twin pigtails for many years because they were trouble free. The hairstyle earned her the nickname Siu Tim Tim or 'Little Sweetie' in the Chinese press because it looked like that of a well-known comic book figure. Many of her clothes, including the miniskirts she wore well into her 60s at the discos where she sometimes danced, were made by friends. 'I've got great legs,' she once said. 'That's why I often wear miniskirts.' She scorned brand-name cosmetics for cheaper products, and dined more frequently on Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's than at luxury restaurants. 'I don't have any time to spend my money,' she was quoted as saying by one magazine to which she gave a rare interview. She said her monthly expenditure was about HK$3,000. At that time, Chinachem was a sprawling business empire worth billions that owned 200 office towers and 400 companies around the globe. But despite the fabulous wealth and social status that came from being a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, there seems to have been little personal joy in her life. For eight bitter years, Nina Wang and her father-in-law, Wang Din-shin, battled in the courts for control of Chinachem. The dispute ended in 2005 when the Court of Final Appeal ruled unanimously that a 1990 will of Teddy Wang was his last valid one. The court's 253-page judgment ended a saga that had transfixed Hong Kong. It overturned the judgments of two lower courts that found the signatures on four hand-written, homemade documents were forged. One of the documents contained the words, 'One life one love', and was said to have been written by Teddy Wang about himself and his wife. The years of courtroom drama traced Teddy Wang's wills back to 1960, when he left his estate divided equally between his father and wife. But in 1968 a new will named his father, Wang Din-shin, as sole executor and beneficiary of the estate. The reasons given in court for this move were that Nina Wang had had an affair with the manager of a warehouse. In March 1990, the month before he was kidnapped and disappeared, Teddy Wang was said to have drawn up the new will, leaving everything to his wife. When the missing billionaire was declared officially dead in 1999, both his wife and father applied for probate. The court fight over this claim was heard behind closed doors. The family squabble came into the public realm in 2001, when the court was opened to the press and public. Nina Wang admitted her affair but raised questions about the youthful womanising and opium smoking of Wang Din-shin. In response, her father-in-law said she had 'a wicked heart'. After a 172-day hearing, the judge ruled sensationally that the 1990 will was a fake - probably written by Nina Wang. Police started a criminal investigation and on December 11, 2002, Wang was arrested on suspicion of forging the will. During the next three years the civil case continued to make headlines. In January 2005, Wang appeared in court charged with forgery, using a false instrument and performing acts intended to pervert the course of justice. Her HK$55 million bail was the largest in Hong Kong history. In July 2005 the Court of Final Appeal found in favour of Wang in the civil case. Five months later, after lengthy discussions with investigators, lawyers at the Department of Justice withdrew the fraud charge and other criminal charges against her. They felt they had no alternative, given the decision of the Court of Final Appeal. Nina Wang was at last able to rightfully lay full claim to the Chinachem fortune and the title of richest woman in Asia.