posted April 18, 2007 02:46 AM         

But why did she live so frugally? Im not judging. But didn't she have friends to give her a wake call? Coward friends.

======Hong Kong tycoon Nina Wang dead

quote:

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HONG KONG: Hong Kong tycoon Nina Wang, believed to be the richest woman in Asia, has died, her secretary said Wednesday.

"Mrs Wang passed away (Tuesday) night," secretary Ringo Wong told AFP.

Wang, who emerged victorious from a long and bruising court battle over her late husband's estate, died at an undisclosed Hong Kong hospital, Wong said without indicating the cause of death.

Despite a fortune estimated at more than US$4b, her frugality was widely documented by Hong Kong media, who nicknamed her "Little Sweetie" because her trademark pigtails resembled a Japanese comic character.

She once admitted that her favourite meal was American fast food and was reputed to have kept her monthly expenditure below 3,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$385).

Wang and husband Teddy - who was declared legally dead in 1999, nine years after he was kidnapped and never heard from again - were together so thrifty they were known to buy cut-price tickets to shows.

Teddy built up Chinachem, mostly on real estate deals, and she helped transform it after his disappearance into a US$3.5b empire that owns more than 200 office towers and 400 companies around the world.

Forbes magazine last year estimated her personal fortune at US$4.2b, 154th in their ranking of the world's richest people. - AFP/yy

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quote:

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HONG KONG: 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 lustre 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 on 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 $4 billion – 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 the Global Entrepreneur magazine that her favourite 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), China Woman said, although while running her late husband's conglomerate Chinachem in the 1990s, the firm was earning many times that per minute.

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posted April 18, 2007 08:29 AM         

However, I would want to help needy folks out.
Not simply "giving"them the "fish",
but "teaching them to fish"
and helping them to uplift themselves.
I would love to be so wealthy,
so I could "spend" it,
so to speak,
on improving humankind existence.