Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd (新鴻基地產), Hong Kong's biggest developer, replaced chairman Walter Kwok (郭炳湘) with his mother, seeking to end a feud that has gripped the city and split its second-richest family.
“Walter has ceased to be the chairman and chief executive of the company and has been re-designated as a non-executive director,” the company said in a filing to Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Kwong Siu-hing (鄺肖卿), 79, was appointed chairman, the company said. No chief executive officer was named.
Sun Hung Kai rose in Hong Kong trading after the decision, extending its rebound from a slump that had erased more than US$4 billion of market value. Walter, who became chairman in 1990 after his father’s death, lost a court battle yesterday to prevent a vote on his ouster, with younger brothers Thomas Kwok (郭炳江) and Raymond Kwok (郭炳聯). Walter, 57, also is suing his siblings for libel.
PHOTO: AFP
“The next question is how the company manages to deal with long-term arrangements,” said Nicole Wong, a property analyst at CLSA Ltd in Hong Kong.
The dispute has aired in court squabbles over the company that built Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper and is the foundation of the Kwok family’s combined wealth of US$24 billion, second on Forbes Magazine’s list of Hong Kong’s richest only to Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠).
“Investors were obviously concerned about who’s going to be in charge,” Wilson Hung, an analyst at Hong Kong-based brokerage Quam Ltd, said before the announcement. “They were worried that if this keeps dragging on it will ultimately impact the company’s business.”
Sun Hung Kai rose 2 percent to HK$128.20 (US$16.42), heading for the biggest two-day gain in three weeks, as of 2:42pm in Hong Kong.
Listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 1972, Sun Hung Kai rode a three-decade surge in home prices to become the city’s biggest developer. Since Walter Kwok took over, the company’s value has ballooned 10-fold and the company now employs more than 27,000 people, its Web site said.
Walter Kwok said in a court filing that his brothers tried to remove him because he was suffering from mental illness. He said he doesn’t have any such disorder.
Walter, who has been on leave for personal reasons since Feb. 18, filed an injunction on May 15 to block the board vote.
Last Wednesday, he sued his brothers for libel, saying they had dubbed him a “liar,” a person of “low integrity” who made “unwise” investment decisions.
They have denied all the allegations.
Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal yesterday upheld a High Court ruling on Friday that canceled a temporary injunction blocking the meeting.
“This court simply cannot dictate to the board who should be their chairman,” Justices Rogers and Le Pichon said in Hong Kong’s appeals court yesterday.
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER: In Germany, the sector would be developed around Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s plant, and extend to Poland and the Czech Republic The Executive Yuan’s economic diplomacy task force has approved programs aimed at bolstering the nation’s chip diplomacy with Japan and European nations. The task force in its first meeting had its operational mechanism and organizational structure confirmed, with Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) the convener, and Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Minister Without Portfolio Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) the deputy conveners. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) would be the convener of the task force’s strategy group in charge of policy planning for economic diplomacy. The meeting was attended by the heads of the National Development Council, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the
RSS