Nina called me 'hubby', says Tony Chan as he takes the stand

Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum was already in a relationship with Tony Chan Chun-chuen - and was calling him 'hubby' - by the time his wife conceived their first son, the fung shui master said yesterday,

Mr Chan, who claims that his close 15-year relationship with Asia's richest woman led her to leave him her fortune, said that even when his wife was pregnant he would stay with the tycoon in her office at night.

'We were already together and she addressed me as 'hubby',' Mr Chan said in his long-awaited first day in the witness box at the Court of First Instance, which is hearing the probate battle between him and the Chinachem Charitable Foundation over Wang's estate.

Cross-examined by Lawrence Lok Ying-kam SC, for the foundation, Mr Chan said he was very happy when his wife conceived a baby boy - even though he and Wang were already in love.

In his opening address earlier in the hearing, Mr Chan's barrister, Ian Mill QC, said Wang's leaving of her multibillion-dollar estate to the fung shui master had been a genuine gesture to the man who had been her 'confidant, her companion when possible and the object of her love for the last 15 years of her life'.

Yesterday, Mr Lok asked Mr Chan whether the choice of name for his firstborn, whom he named Wealthee Chan, was 'an expression of hope of wealth in the future'.