Newsbreak Who Inherits Lucio Tan's Billions?

Who Inherits Lucio Tan’s Billions?

Friday, 17 August 2007

Whenever people who have dealt with taipan Lucio Tan talk about him, anecdotes about four aspects of his life never seem to end: his love life, restaurant manners, political connections, and detest for paying taxes.

His political connections have been reported in the media, and the alleged tax dues have been recorded in voluminous court documents. Then there were the accounts of him ordering hopia in a five-star restaurant and gobbling it up, crumbs and flakes falling all over the place, manners one would not expect in a five-star restaurant. (Okay, so he owns Century Park Sheraton, where the restaurant is.)

His family life invites the most curiosity. Why, for instance, doesn’t anybody from his family seem to stand out as his business protégé? After all, Lucio Tan is in his twilight years and his contemporaries, who have rags-to-riches stories like him, have clear-cut succession plans. A good number of them have even turned over the management of their business empire to the next generation, and are now enjoying being grandfathers or engaging in philanthropic works.

Tan, however, remains on top of his business empire, while his children keep a low profile, with some of them engaging in enterprises that don’t seem to complement their dad’s businesses. Well, it seems that the reason is that he just has too many prospective protégés to choose from, so he’d rather not bother anymore. His family includes four wives (some say five), four mistresses (some say more), and their sons and daughters, plus a battery of siblings and extended relatives.

Having a very large family is reportedly also the reason that billionaire Tan still doesn’t have a last will and testament. Sources say that the taipan seems to believe that if he prepares one now, it will cause more squabbles among his “family” members. He would rather have them fight when he’s already six feet under.

What happens when that time comes boggles the mind. Imagine each wife, child, brother, and relative will be on his or her own. There just might not be enough good lawyers in the country to handle the inheritance cases.

(The count on his “wives” is short. It is 13. The last is the Mongolian youngling he bought for $200,000 who just gave him a child two years back. And this does not yet count the under-aged girls he choppers-off to her scattered love-nests as side dishes. The government should have an incorruptible leader to collect and punish this sexual pervert Yellow Economic Lucifer while still alive. His tax cheated wealth will not go back to government coffers but divided by his countless children and bastards through figths!)