Apr 20, 2007, 10:53 GMT
Hong Kong - A legal battle was looming Friday after Asia's richest woman Nina Wang appeared to have left her entire 4.2 billion US dollar fortune to a feng shui master.
A notice in Hong Kong newspapers Friday announced that Wang, the head of the Chinachem property empire who died of cancer earlier this month, had left her estate to little-known Chan Chun Chuen.
Childless Wang, 69, wrote a new will in 2006, two years after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed, bequeathing 'all her estate' to Chan, according to the notice from her solicitors.
Her sisters and other relatives have meanwhile launched a legal action to fight for her estate, which was originally shared between charities and family members in an earlier 2002 will.
Chan is an expert in feng shui, the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment, and is consulted by property developers for readings.
He is understood to have become a close and trusted advisor to Wang in her later years and lives in a large mansion in one of Hong Kong's most fashionable districts.
The solicitor's notice in Friday's newspapers said: 'Mr Chan is very honoured by the trust and affection which Nina Wang has shown in passing her entire estate to him.
'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.'
Wang herself died only shortly after winning an eight-year legal battle over the fortune of her husband Teddy which she inherited after he was kidnapped in 1990 and later declared dead when no trace of him was ever found.
She built his company, Chinachem, up into a multi-billion US dollar business empire but initially lost a probate battle with her father-in-law.
In a 2002 hearing, Hong Kong's High Court heard claims that Nina Wang had an affair in the 1960s which led Teddy to cut her out of his will, although they remained married.
Appeal court judges initially ruled she had probably forged the will of her late husband and, after the ruling, police investigated the issue and Nina Wang was charged with forgery.
The charges were dropped, however, after Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal overturned the probate decision and ruled there was no evidence that Wang had forged the will.
Despite her enormous wealth, Wang, who wore pigtails and mini skirts well into her 60s, was notoriously frugal and once claimed she needed only around 400 US dollars a month to live.
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