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.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS