Hong Kong's richest woman dies leaving multi-billion dollar fortune

Apr 4, 2007, 10:07 GMT

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's richest woman Nina Wang has died at the age of 69, just two years after winning a sensational legal battle over the fortune of her missing tycoon husband.

The office of Wang confirmed Wednesday that the head of the Chinachem group, who was recently reported to be suffering from ovarian cancer, had passed away.

Wang, estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth 2.4 billion US dollars, won an eight-year legal battle in 2005 against her father in law over the estate of her missing husband Teddy.

Wang's husband Teddy was kidnapped in 1990 and was nine years later declared dead after no trace of him was ever found. After his disappearance, his wife inherited his fortune.

She built his company, Chinachem, up into a 3.09 billion US dollar business empire but initially lost a probate battle with her father-in-law who claimed she had forged Teddy's will.

In a 2002 hearing, Hong Kong's High Court heard allegations of an affair by Nina Wang in the 1960s which allegedly 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 prosecution was dropped, however, after Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal overturned the probate decision.

Wang's office dismissed reports in December that Wang was critically ill after ovarian cancer had spread to her liver and other organs.

   Neither Teddy nor Nina Wang had any children and there has been no word on what will happen to the fortune. However, Wang Din-shin, the father-in-law Nina Wang defeated after eight years of legal battles is in his 90s.