Sex, Lies and Probates

With her antenna-like pigtails, Nina Wang is one of Hong Kong's least likely moguls. She may also be one of the shrewdest. After assuming control of her husband Teddy Wang's estate a decade ago, she transformed his property development company, the Chinachem Group, into a multi-billion dollar behemoth. But the good times may be coming to an end. After a 171-day courtroom inheritance battle, a Hong Kong judge ruled on Nov. 21 that Nina Wang had "probably" forged her husband's will. The judge awarded Teddy Wang's estimated $128 million estate to his 90-year-old father, Wang Din-shin. The decision is the latest twist in a case that dates back to Teddy Wang's unsolved 1990 kidnapping. (His body was never found, but he was declared dead in 1999). The tycoon had changed his will in 1968 after discovering that his wife was allegedly having an affair, and had named his father as the inheritor. But in 1990, Nina produced another will dated a month prior to her husband's disappearance; it named "my beloved wife ... the one I love most on Earth" as sole beneficiary. Given that the gruff Teddy was not known to spout love poetry, the new will's romance novel stylings were a prime reason for its rejection. The fate of Chinachem, a private company, is still murky. Nina will appeal, but for now the nonagenarian Wang Din-shin is Hong Kong's newest centi-millionaire.