IHD chief's winding road to prison ends

WHEN the doors of Ch'ng Poh's cell crashed shut yesterday, locking away the Malaysian businessman for five years, the door was also closing on a long and curious chapter of Hong Kong corporate history.

Ch'ng dictated his own ''epitaph'' to the press in 1986. ''If you believe in your own principles, you have to stand by them,'' he said. ''I think right will always prevail. I have to bear it and take the responsibility.'' The tale began when Ch'ng and his friend Ngai Shiu-kit, a legislative councillor, used their company, Join Hands, to buy 60 per cent of Intercontinental Housing Developments Holdings (now IHD Holdings) in August 1985 from then-owners Tan Khai-chong and Low Chang Hian, who was also at the time chief of Ka Wah Bank.

Mr Ngai was to provide $45 million in cash and bank loans and Ch'ng was to come up with the rest in a bid worth $232.5 million.

But Ch'ng never came up with his share. Instead, he conspired with Low, who is now in jail, to steal the money from IHD itself.

The pair cooked up a scheme in which a series of cheques would be circulated - with Ch'ng signing and Low rubber-stamping them.

In less than 15 minutes the money travelled in a neat circle. IHD was bought and apparently paid for - but the money had come from the firm's own accounts.