What if? — today’s wealth news, replayed through Singapore

The Ray-Ban founder split his empire into eight equal parts. This week it cost him a son. What if the Del Vecchios had planned it from Singapore?

Jerry Buss left the Lakers to his six children in a trust — equal money, but the wheel held in place by an annual vote. Thirteen years on, his daughter has gone to court to stop her own family selling. What if the deed had answered the question first?

In 1999 Rupert Murdoch locked control of Fox and News Corp into a trust his four eldest children would one day share equally. In 2023 he tried to break it; a Nevada court said no; in 2025 three of them left with about $1.1 billion each. This week the unsealed files show what the deed never decided. What if it had been written in Singapore?

Three weeks before she died in 2003, Anita Mui put her estate into a trust rather than leave it to her mother — because, she told the trust officer, her mother could not manage money and would outlive her. She was right on both counts. Her mother sued, lost at every level, and died on Sunday aged 102. What if it had been written in Singapore?

Lim Por-yen built Crocodile Garments, Lai Sun and ATV. At 90 he signed a new will that cut out one of his four households — four months after scoring 8 out of 30 on a memory test. Hong Kong's High Court voided it and revived the 1973 manuscript instead. The estate has now appealed. What if it had been Singapore?

Chang Yung-fa built EVA Air and Evergreen Marine, then sealed a will in 2014 leaving everything to one son. Taiwan's Supreme Court upheld it in 2024. Then NT$16.1 billion of dividends landed in the executors' account and his own foundation sued them, citing a line in his autobiography. What if it had been Singapore?

LG's chairman was adopted in 2004 so that the group could pass to him. In the weeks after the 2018 funeral his adoptive mother and two sisters signed a partition agreement that gave him almost the exact inverse of the statutory shares. She has since tried to undo the signature, and then the adoption itself. Both failed. What if it had been Singapore?

On 24 February 2026 Manulife Singapore said it had issued a single life policy with a sum assured of US$300 million, above the US$250 million that Guinness certified for HSBC Life in Hong Kong two years earlier. On 20 August Hong Kong's Insurance Authority wrote to every life insurer about the borrowed money behind policies like these. A death benefit is the one asset a death creates rather than freezes — but only if nobody has pledged it first. What does Singapore actually give a family that holds one?

Tam Mei-kam died on 30 August aged 102, closing the trust her daughter settled in 2003. On 7 September her eldest son, Mui Kai-ming, called a press conference in Causeway Bay: he will bury her, not cremate her, at a cost of about HK$1.5 million he has not yet found; he will seek an injunction against the grandson her will names; and he says a will signed by a woman of nearly 100 who had disowned him in the newspapers cannot be trusted. The trust is beyond him. Her own estate is not. What if it had been Singapore?

Chung Chiung-ming, co-founder of Taiwan's NOVA computer malls, died suddenly in Beijing in March 2012 at 55. He left three floors on Guanqian Road opposite Taipei Main Station, a Starbucks paying up to NT$470,000 a month, a mainland-born widow the cross-strait statute would not let inherit land, a mother who wanted NT$190 million back, and two sons by two marriages. Fourteen years and at least eight lawsuits later, the widow is a fugitive until 2048 and two hearings are set for October. What if it had been Singapore?

Chow Yei-ching built Chevalier from a lift-engineering firm in 1970 into a Hong Kong group of hotels, car dealerships, cold stores and the building that carries his name. He signed four wills. The third, in 2009, told his family to wait 80 years. The fourth, signed three days after a cancer diagnosis in October 2015, gave 189,490,248 shares, 62.9 per cent of the company, to his fifth daughter and nothing to his only son. He died in 2018. Closing submissions ended on 8 September 2026 and the judge has reserved judgment. What if it had been Singapore?

On 9 September 2026 Samsung Electronics filed a notice that its chairman, Lee Jae-yong, will buy 7,188,793 of the company's shares from his mother, Hong Ra-hee, on 12 October at ₩269,500 each. The reason the money changes hands inside one family is Korean tax law: a gift of that size is taxed at 50 per cent, an inheritance of a controlling holding at 60, and the family has just spent five years and three block sales settling the last bill. What if it had been Singapore?

On 8 September 2026 SP NP Ltd, the holding company of Shu Ping's Rose Trust, sold 259,000,000 Haidilao shares at HK$10.62 in a pre-market block trade. The company says the trust needed the money for its own funding and financial arrangements. Seven weeks earlier China's Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration had published Announcement 21 of 2026, which taxes a resident's offshore trust at 20 per cent and gives 90 days, to 22 October, to settle the back years without surcharge. Her husband is a naturalised Singapore citizen. What if it had been Singapore? It already was, and that is the story.

Jimmy Buffett left most of what he owned in a marital trust for his wife of 46 years, with his accountant of 30 years beside her as co-trustee and their three children waiting on the remainder. Two years after his death the co-trustees are suing each other in Palm Beach, the trust has paid about $6.4 million to one side by the widow's count, a judge has ruled the accountant may keep billing it, and a text message about '75 million' has split the children. What if it had been Singapore?

Brent Hinds co-founded the Atlanta metal band Mastodon in 2000 and was told in March 2025 that he was out. He never signed the separation terms and died five months later. His estate says the three surviving founders then sent a cheque for $80,000 'as an aggregate buyout' with no explanation of the number, and put a face resembling his on an album he did not play on. On 3 September 2026 the estate sued in Fulton County for an accounting. What if it had been Singapore?

The singer of 苦酒滿杯 never married and has no children. His heirs in law are his brothers and sisters; the people he wants to provide for — a godson, an assistant, the nephews and nieces he raised — are not heirs at all. He owns one house in Taipei, one in Hong Kong and one in Malaysia, each passing under a different law. What if it had been Singapore?

Nathan Allman built Ondo Finance into a US$3.5 billion tokenisation platform and died in May with no will, as its sole director and controlling shareholder. A Hawaii probate court made his parents his heirs. His mother sacked the acting chief executive; he says her removal was invalid; and on 16 September her own estranged daughter asked a court to take the shares out of her hands. What if the founder had been in Singapore?

Two years after Ratan Tata died, the charitable trusts that own two-thirds of Tata Sons voted against the board that re-appointed the group's chairman, called the resolution a legal nullity, and asked the company to find someone else. The annual meeting could not be held for want of a quorum; the regulator wants the holding company listed; the 18 per cent minority wants out. What if the owner had been written in Singapore?

Europe's richest ruling family, owner of LGT and its CHF 412.6 billion under management, rewrote its house law on 11 August 2026: daughters now vote, the first-born of either sex will succeed, and the head's disciplinary rulings bite before any appeal. Two princes told the Financial Times they may sue. The charter says no constitution can touch it and hears its own appeals. What if the family had written it in Singapore?

Three weeks after the singer died, the trustees of the DP Dean Trust, her longtime manager and a Nashville bank, dismissed her nephew, head of security for more than twenty years, from every property, and told him in the same letter that his share of the trust is untouched. He says her final directive was to protect her family. What if the trust had been written in Singapore?

The Black Panther star died in 2020 without a will. The court put his widow in charge of the estate she inherits half of, and his parents' quarters had to pass through her hands. Six years on, his brothers want her removed, and on 24 September she called it a public-relations stunt. What if the estate had been in Singapore?

Bernard Arnault, 77, is folding the companies that control LVMH into one listed partnership that outside shareholders cannot take the wheel of. Above it sits a family company his five children own in equal fifths, locked for 30 years. What would Singapore allow, and what would it refuse?

M.G. Ramachandran, the Tamil film star who ran Tamil Nadu until he died in 1987, left a will that the court probated in 1992. On 24 September 2026 a judge in Chennai threw out his stepson's claim to a plot the stepson says the will forgot, and eleven of his brother's descendants lost their bid to join the case. The judge decided nothing about who owns the land. What if the estate had been in Singapore?

Lord Bamford, 80, has chaired JCB since 1975. From October he shares the chair with his youngest son, George, four months after saying the job would go to George rather than his elder son, Jo. Companies House shows that the company behind the yellow diggers is owned through a trust, and that the power over its trustees sits with someone outside the family who lives in Monaco. What if it had been Singapore?

The actress from Heroes and Nashville died on 16 August 2026 at 36, without a will. Her only child, Kaya, 11, inherits everything. On 24 September the girl's father, the former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to make him temporary guardian of her estate, saying property was being moved and emails accessed while nobody had authority to act. The hearing is on 7 December. What if it had been Singapore?

Giorgio Armani died on 4 September 2025, aged 91. His will tells the heirs to sell about 15% of the group between 12 and 18 months later, to LVMH, L'Oréal or EssilorLuxottica or a buyer of equal standing. The window opened on 4 September 2026. On 27 September the chief executive said the stake could be split among several investors, that nothing is decided, and that any deal depends on price. Two people close to the matter had already told Reuters the will's deadlines are not strictly binding. What if it had been Singapore?

New World Development reported a HK$26.8 billion loss on 30 September 2026 and agreed to pay HK$2.3 billion to hand its airport mall back. The Cheng family's private company, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, told the board it is prepared to fund the developer, with no amount stated. The same evening it gave the Airport Authority an option over 750 million of its own New World shares, for HK$1. The family companies above it also control the jewellery chain. What if it had been Singapore?

Lim Siew Kim, a daughter of Genting founder Lim Goh Tong, died in July 2022 with an estate put at RM1.6 billion and a will signed from a hospital bed 17 days after the one before it. Two daughters sued, and the court put two outsiders in charge. On 5 and 7 October 2026 her son asked the Kuala Lumpur High Court to remove them over more than RM2 million paid to lawyers. They deny enriching themselves. What if it had been Singapore?

Three branches of the Lopez family, owners of 71% of Lopez Inc., the private company above ABS-CBN and First Gen, voted 5–2 on 27 February 2026 to remove their cousin Federico 'Piki' Lopez as its president. A court froze the vote within weeks. By October one branch had sold its 25.68% to Ramon Ang, and Piki had been re-elected to run Lopez Holdings and First Philippine Holdings. What if it had been Singapore?

In March 2024 Venu Srinivasan, his wife Mallika and their two children signed a memorandum deciding who may use the TVS name in which business. What it says about who owns what is the fight. On 9 October 2026 the two camps went public: the son's side says the businesses were divided; the daughter's side says only the brand was, and she wants an equal share. What if it had been Singapore?