Property billionaire Kwek length Beng's case against his son, retaining urban development role

Billionaire Kwek Leng Beng withdraws his court case against his son last month as executives of City Developments Ltd. (CDL) compete for control of Singapore's real estate giant.

“The court proceedings have been settled and will be suspended,” CDL said in a statement late Wednesday.

In a case filed in Singapore’s High Court in late February, Elder Kwick accused Sherman of appointing two new board members “in an attempt to coup at the board level” without proper review by the nomination committee.

The board fight made public the brewing dispute between City Development Executive Chairman Kwek Leng Beng and his eldest son Sherman, group CEO. The board brawl has lowered CDL stock to a 16-year low, and the company lost its status as Singapore's most valuable public-deal real estate developer and analysts have been downgraded.

CDL withdraws the case, Elder Kwek will continue to be executive chairman, while Sherman will continue to serve as group CEO. It added that all current board directors will also remain.

“All board members agree to put aside differences for the greater interests of CDL and its stakeholders,” the Chairman said in another statement. “We will continue to focus on strengthening CDL's business in light of good corporate governance now and in the future.”

The case sold $11.5 billion in one of Singapore’s wealthiest families. The boardroom center adviser resigned for a week after Catherine Wu, a consultant at the boardroom center resigned.

Sherman said the dispute with his father was partly due to concerns Wu claimed he had a long-term relationship with the older Kwek, who had been interfering in CDL's Millennium and Coppthorne hotel affairs and raised a very serious corporate governance issue.

The older Kwek, along with his late brother, kwek length joo and their father, Kwek Hong Png, purchased the lost city development in 1969 and transformed it into one of the city's largest real estate developers with a market value of S$4.4 billion. Kwek Leng Beng is also the executive chairman of the privately owned Hong Leong Group, which was founded by his father in 1941 as a trading company. His cousin Quek Leng Chan (also a billionaire) owns and runs a separate group in Malaysia, also known as Hong Leong, and the name translates to “good harvest”.