Philanthropist sues school for 'misleading' him
"Electronics king" Koo Ming-kown is accusing a school and two former officials of misleading him into giving it a HK$20 million gift - and is demanding his money back.
"Electronics king" Koo Ming-kown is accusing a school and two former officials of misleading him into giving it a HK$20 million gift - and is demanding his money back.
The philanthropist and industrialist, founder of Nam Tai Trading, filed a lawsuit against Pui Ching Primary School, its former supervisor Clement Young Kwok-hung and former principal Lee See-yuen.
In the High Court writ, he claims Young and Lee told him the school in Ho Man Tin did not have the money to build a new teaching building. Koo handed over HK$20 million in December 2007. The businessman had attended its sister school, Pui Ching Middle School.
Koo claims what Young and Lee told him amounted to "misrepresentation", but does not give further details in the writ.
Born in Shanghai in 1944, Koo and his family moved to Hong Kong in 1947. After studying at Pui Ching, he studied law in Taiwan. He founded Nam Tai in 1975, building up his fortune by selling calculators before moving on to the assembly of high-end electronic components.
A noted philanthropist, his HK$100 million gift to Baptist University in 2004 was the biggest the institution had ever received at that time. He has also donated money on the mainland, in the United States and in Canada, where he moved in the 1990s.