Hong Kong's richest woman sees her wealth halved

HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s richest woman Pollyanna Chu has seen more than half of her wealth wiped out in the last three months after warnings from regulators about her company led to stock plunges.

Chu’s Hong Kong-listed Kingston Financial Group tumbled again by as much as 12 percent on Monday after index provider FTSE Russell removed the stock from its benchmarks, according to Bloomberg News.

Monday’s crash comes on the heels of a steeper slide since January after Hong Kong’s securities regulator warned the company’s shares were too concentrated in a small number of shareholders and that prices could fluctuate substantially.

The Securities and Futures Commission found more than 91 percent of the company’s shares were controlled by 20 shareholders, adding investors “should exercise extreme caution”.

Kingston Financial Group, which 59-year-old Chu co-founded with her husband Nicholas, operates Macau casinos and offers financial services.

The stock has become the worst performer on index compiler MSCI Inc’s gauge in Asia this year, Bloomberg News reported.

Chu, whose father Lee Wai-man is a veteran in Macau’s casino industry, was named Hong Kong’s richest woman by Forbes in 2017, with her fortune estimated at almost $12 billion at the start of this year.

Her wealth has slumped to around $5.7 billion as of Monday, hovering above gambling mogul Stanley Ho’s daughter Pansy Ho on the billionaires’ list who is estimated to be worth $5.5 billion by Forbes.

Chu recently became part of a record $5.2 billion deal to acquire a Hong Kong landmark skyscraper previously owned by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Shing, according to reports by Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.