‘Wahaha Princess’ Reveals China’s Uncommon Prosperity
A $2 billion inheritance lawsuit raises the question of extreme wealth and who owns what.
A family dispute at Wahaha is changing how the Chinese view the mega rich.
Photographer: VCG/Visual China Group/Getty Images
In a country where the government is short on fiscal income and its people are worried about layoffs and salary cuts, $2 billion raises a lot of eyebrows.
Kelly Zong, chief executive at one of China’s largest beverage empires, is embroiled in an inheritance dispute. Three plaintiffs, identified by their lawyer as her “half brothers and sister,” are seeking an injunction in Hong Kong to prevent her from dealing with assets worth about that amount. The feud surfaced just a year after the heiress won a battle for control of Hangzhou Wahaha Group following her father’s death last February. As Bloomberg News reported, until now, Kelly Zong was the only child the public had known about. Her lawyer says she doesn’t accept the evidence and that her father Zong Qinghou’s directives were not given to her.