A quarrel similar to a succession has engulfed one of the richest families in Singapore while Kwek Leng Beng, executive president of the real estate company City Developments Limited (CDL), accused his son Sherman, who is the director general of the company, of plotting a shot of the conference room.
The eldest Mr. Kwek, who is 84 years old this year, with CDL, filed on Wednesday judicial documents accusing his son, two other members of the board of directors and a group of administrators to try to take control of the business.
“It is necessary to face this attempted coup at the level of the board of directors and to restore the integrity of the company,” he said.
CDL, which is the biggest real estate developer listed in Singapore, interrupted its shares on the Hub Financial scholarship.
“We intend to change the chief executive at the appropriate time,” Kwek Leng Beng and CDL said in a press release.
If Sherman Kwek is withdrawn as managing director, the company plans to replace him on a provisional basis with his cousin Kwek Eik Sheng.
The dispute focuses on an e -mail sent by the CDL company, appointing two additional independent directors on the night of January 28, the day before the Lunar New An – which marks the start of a big party in Singapore.
The row attracted the attention of the public to a part of the world in which battles on family businesses are not uncommon and are known to find themselves in court.
After the hearing of the court on Wednesday, CDL said that the two new administrators had agreed to make no powers until further notice.
The company later said that Sherman Kwek would remain in the role until the problem is solved.
Sherman Kwek said that he and the majority of CDL’s board of directors were disappointed with what he described as extreme actions taken by his father “concerning this disagreement on the size and composition of the CDL card”.
Kwek Leng Beng, as well as his father and brother, took control of the CDL at the time in 1971. He became the executive president of the company after the death of his father in 1995.
It now has more than 160 hotel properties, residential and commercial around the world and is part of a family empire of several billion dollars.
In the HBO Succession television series, the fictitious family Roy is fighting for control of the world media company Waystar Royco.
