Ousted chairman Walter Kwok Ping-sheung yesterday challenged his mother Kwong Siu-hing's power to remove him as a beneficiary of a family trust that controls the HK$246.6 billion Sun Hung Kai Properties empire. 'My mother is just a protector of the family trust. A protector should act in compliance with the agreement between parties,' said Kwok.
He said he signed a document with his younger brothers, Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong and Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, before the relationship turned sour in 2008. Under that agreement, the trio agreed each had a one-third stake in the family trust - HSBC Trustee. It owns 42.42 per cent of Sun Hung Kai Properties.
'I have their signatures [on the document],' said Kwok.
He said it was a legal contract, that cannot be unilaterally altered, cancelled or overridden by a new contract. Walter Kwok confirmed that he had received a letter from the family trust in 2010, informing him that he was no longer a beneficiary. He immediately expressed his objection and later went to the International Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland after failing to get access to view the latest holding of the trust in Hong Kong.
The family trust reorganisation announced on October 4, 2010, stated that a third of the shareholding of the trust was to be held for the benefit of Walter Kwok's family.
Walter Kwok's name was not included in the announcement. Thomas and Raymond Kwok are each beneficiaries of a third of the trust along with their families, according to the 2010 announcement.
A source close to the Kwok family yesterday said that family matriarch Kwong expressed her wishes in the 2010 reorganisation of the family trusts into three equal parts, including one shareholding for the benefit of Walter's family.