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HONG KONG : A mystery Hong Kong feng shui master on Friday claimed the estate of Asia's richest woman Nina Wang, setting the stage for a spectacular courtroom battle over her four billion dollar fortune.
The announcement came as relatives filed their own legal papers over the wealth of the late eccentric, whose property empire and miser's lifestyle made her a regular feature on both the business and the gossip pages.
Attorneys said a 2006 will written by Wang, who died this month from cancer aged 69, had left the entire legacy to feng shui master Chan Chun Chuen -- a figure other feng shui masters in this Chinese city said they'd never heard of.
"Mr Chan is very honoured by the trust and affection which Nina Wang has shown in passing her entire estate to him," said the legal notice published in several Hong Kong newspapers.
"In dealing with it, Mr Chan will at all times have regard to the values by which Nina Wang managed her business interests and personal affairs during her life."
Lawyer Jonathan Midgely, who also served as Wang's counsel during her bitter eight-year battle against her father-in-law for control of her late husband's estate, said a news conference would be held later in the day.
In death as in life, Wang has generated controversy and filled the daily papers in Hong Kong, a wealth-obsessed financial hub where rumours abound over what will happen to the fortune the mini-skirt wearing mogul left behind.
Some have even suggested there might be considerably more than the 4.2 billion US dollars Forbes estimated she was worth last year -- vast wealth she made by transforming her husband's company Chinachem into a real estate empire.
She seized control of Chinachem after the disappearance of her husband Teddy, who was kidnapped in 1990 and never heard from again. She long insisted he was still alive even after the courts declared him legally dead in 1999.
But her father-in-law Wang Din-shin, now 96, sued to get control of Teddy's assets in a bitter court battle that saw the two sides trade accusations of adultery, sloth and naked greed. She won in 2005.
Now two younger sisters and a brother of Nina have filed their own papers over the estate in the name of a charity trust connected to Chinachem.
They say the trust was named as the executor of a will that Wang purportedly wrote in 2002, possibly paving the way for a second court fight over the fortune.
In a further twist, the Oriental Daily News said the family held a third and final will written just before the tycoon's death on April 4. It did not say when the purported document was dated.
Little is known about Chan and local newspapers interviewed well-known feng shui masters -- traditionally consulted in China to ensure health, wealth and happiness -- who said they had never heard of him.
The Apple Daily newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said Chan had gained Wang's trust as he had also believed that her late husband Teddy was still alive, and that they repeatedly prayed together at a temple for his return.
- AFP
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