Angeline Francis Khoo, heiress to the MUI Group empire that includes Laura Ashley Holdings, worth a reported RM2.47 billion (US$576 million), has just given up her stake in the family fortune. Plot twist! She did it all for love, and renounced her inheritance after choosing to marry a man that did not have her father’s approval.
Her husband, who she met while both were studying at Oxford, is Caribbean-native Jedidiah Francis. Having met Francis, who is currently Head of Data Science at ASOS.com, her father, Khoo Kay Peng, refused to give his approval. We wonder why?
If Khoo’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s because he’s spent the best part of the past five years trying to fight his former wife in one of the UK’s most sizable divorce settlements. Pauline Chai eventually won a US$84 million settlement.
In an interview with British broadsheet The Telegraph, she recalls telling her father that she believed he was wrong, so for her, knowing what was right was obvious.
“I’ve been fortunate to have that perspective, that you can have money and it’s a blessing, [and] it allows you to do things and gives you options, but there are also things that come with it, such as control. Money amplifies negative characteristics and that can cause problems. To walk away from that was actually very easy. I didn’t even consider it,” Angeline told the paper.
Angeline had been working for her father in different capacities since her teen years, continuing right up until the rift between the two.
She speaks of a fatherless childhood, where visits were limited to once a year between her father and her four siblings, two of whom have special needs.
There seems to be no love lost between father and daughter, as is evident when she discusses the magnitude of the settlement. She tells the paper that possession of the company’s money, in itself, had more to do with control that actual greed. That it was her mother’s way of regaining control.
She also called into question the veracity of claims made by her father that her mother, his ex-wife, is the owner of over 1,000 pairs of heels. She claims that her mother is actually a rather frugal woman, who insists on using boxed hair dye as opposed to going to the salon.
OK, OK … we get it. Your mom is completely chill. She’s just like us. Except for, y’know, the MILLIONS in the bank.
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