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Asia's richest women: Frugal life, lavish funeral
By: Agence France-Presse
Hong Kong tycoon Nina Wang may have been given a funeral send-off Wednesday as lavish as her dress sense was outrageous, but Asia's richest woman lived life frugally, saving every penny she could.
The luster of the ceremony, with millions of dollars worth of Dutch flowers flown in, was in tune with the garish pigtails and gay-glo clothes she liked to wear.
But her life had been one of careful financial management combined with an indomitable fighting spirit, seen best in a mammoth court battle over her late husband's wealth.
Wang, who died April 3 aged 69 of an undisclosed cancer, preferred cheap brands and fried chicken to designer clothes and five-star restaurants and -- despite a personal fortune estimated as at least four billion US dollars -- avoided the usual trappings of the high life.
Wang and husband Teddy -- who was declared legally dead in 1999, nine years after he was kidnapped and never heard from again -- were so thrifty they bought cut-price tickets to shows.
Her frugality was widely documented by the Hong Kong media, who nicknamed her "Little Sweetie" because her trademark pigtails resembled a Japanese comic character.
Unlike most residents in designer-obsessed and shopaholic Hong Kong, Wang rarely went to malls and had most of her clothes and handbags made by friends.
She opted for factory outlets selling discounted items, eschewing costly beauty salons and using ordinary cosmetics because the name brands were "too expensive," China Woman newspaper once noted.
She admitted to Global Entrepreneur magazine that her favorite food was American fast food such as KFC and McDonald's.
Her low-cost lifestyle kept her monthly expenditure below 3,000 Hong Kong dollars (385 US), China Woman said, although while running her late husband's conglomerate Chinachem in the 1990s the firm was earning many times that per minute.
Wang proved a shrewd businesswoman and power player on the political scene.
After taking control of Chinachem she turned it into a multi-billion US dollar empire with more than 200 office towers and 400 companies around the world.
Forbes magazine last year estimated her personal fortune at 4.2 billion US dollars, 154th in its ranking of the world's richest people.
She was a workaholic, rising early and often working past midnight. She kept a low profile and rarely discussed her business investments.
"I don't have any time to spend my money," she was quoted as saying by China Woman.
Rarely seen in public, she had a phalanx of 50 bodyguards because she reportedly received regular death threats.
Wang had served on the elite selection committee that chooses Hong Kong's leader and was a delegate to a top advisory body to the Chinese government.
But her plan to build Hong Kong's tallest building, which she wanted to name "Nina Tower," was scuppered by planning authorities.
Born in Shanghai, Nina and Teddy were childhood friends. They began dating at the age of 11 and married seven years later, moving to Hong Kong in the 1950s.
Teddy Wang built up Chinachem Group, mostly on real estate deals, but his riches led to trouble. He was kidnapped in 1983 and only released after the family paid a ransom of $11 million.
When he was kidnapped a second time in 1990, the family paid $60 million. But he was never seen again and his body was never found.
Wang then took over Chinachem and threw herself into the job -- and the legal action brought by Teddy's elderly father Wang Din-shin to take over the company he claimed she had fraudulently inherited.
She and Wang senior traded harsh accusations throughout the case. He said she was an adulterer, while she claimed her late husband was an opium user and womanizer.
Eventually, in 2005, she won the battle when the court overturned an earlier ruling that she had forged Teddy's will shortly before he disappeared.