Taiwan’s Formosa Plastic/Petrochemicals Heir Claims $4 Billion of Assets Misappropriated by Late Patriarch’s Financial Advisers

June 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Plastic Heir Claims $4 Billion of Assets Misappropriated

Winston Wong, the eldest son and estate administrator of deceased Taiwan petrochemicals tycoon Wang Yung-ching, sued two Hong Kong companies, claiming they misappropriated $4 billion in assets. Hong Kong’s High Court on May 2 named Wong as administrator of his father’s estate. Wong filed a lawsuit today against Jao Chien Fang and Chang Pen-yuan, formerly his father’s financial advisers, as well as Hua Yang Investment (H.K.) Ltd. and Winson International Investments Ltd. He accused the defendants of acting dishonestly to misappropriate his father’s assets, and is seeking their return plus interest. “This is an important and humbling moment as I stand in my father’s shoes as administrator and continue the efforts to identify and recover everything that should have been declared in his estate,” Wong said in a statement today. Today’s suit adds to litigation that Wong has filed in the U.S., Taiwan, Bermuda and Hong Kong over Wang’s holdings since his death in 2008 at the age of 91. The $4 billion held in Hong Kong includes power plants in China and real estate, with Wong estimating the total value of his late father’s assets at about $18 billion.Simon Clarke, a lawyer who represented Hua Yang Investment and Winson International, didn’t immediately respond to a phone request for comment.

Plastics Businesses

Wang founded Formosa Plastics Group in 1954. The group, Taiwan’s biggest diversified industrial company, had pretax profit of NT$43.5 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2012 and assets valued at about $100 billion based on current exchange rates, according to figures on its website. Formosa has factories in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the U.S. and Taiwan, and its products include polyvinyl chloride, more commonly known as PVC, semiconductors, textiles and detergents.

Wong helped found Taiwan-listed Nanya Technology Corp. (2408), a unit of Formosa, and was its chairman until 1995.

The case is Dr. Wong, Wen-Young and Hua Yang Investment (H.K.) Limited, Winson International Investments Ltd., Jao Chien Fang, Chang Pen-yuan, HCA1017/2013 in the Hong Kong Court of First Instance.

To contact the reporter on this story: Debra Mao in Taipei at dmao5@bloomberg.net

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