Tycoon Christopher Ho's assets put into receivership as Akai saga rolls on

Tycoon Christopher Ho Wing-on will this week lose control of prized assets such as his Rolls-Royces, Porsches and art collection as part of the continuing legal saga over the collapse of disgraced entrepreneur James Ting's Akai Holdings empire.

The personal assets of Ho, the chairman and majority owner of Hong Kong-listed electronics firm Grande Holdings, have been placed into receivership by the High Court after he breached an earlier asset-freezing order against him.

In February, the court froze Ho's assets including luxury properties, cars, art, wine, chandeliers and pianos, to help the liquidators, Borrelli Walsh, investigate his potential role in Akai's failure.

But since then, Ho has breached the terms of his asset-freezing order by 'siphoning' HK$300 million of cash through his family trust, Mr Justice William Stone wrote in a damning ruling yesterday.

Grande also 'egregiously' sold its Singapore headquarters in breach of a requirement to notify the court of substantial transactions 14 days beforehand, the judgment said.

The judge has placed all Ho's property into the control of Robin Darton, the receiver, of law firm Tanner Dewitt, to prevent what the ruling described as a 'continuing dissipation of assets ... in breach of the original order.'