Stock-loss boss kills himself
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A top aide to Chinese Estates chairman Joseph Lau Luen-hung was found dead in his wife's car yesterday just hours before he was to meet the media to promote the company's latest development of luxury flats in Wan Chai. It is believed Peter Yam Kin-wah took his own life but no suicide note was found. But police recovered a piece of paper from the floor of the car on which were written the words "money needed," four dates, four different amounts and a grand total. There was a gas stove on the front passenger seat with a pot of charcoal on it. It is thought Yam, 49, had suffered heavy losses on the stock market and a source suggested his credit card bills alone exceeded HK$1 million. The Hang Seng Index has fallen 22 percent this year and is still 32 percent off its all-time high of 31,958.400 reached last October. Yam was a sales manager for Chinese Estates and a familiar figure in media circles as he regularly provided comments about properties. A press conference he was due to host yesterday afternoon, promoting the company's latest luxury residential development in York Place, Wan Chai, was canceled. At around 6.30am yesterday, a woman passerby found Yam slumped in the driver's seat of a red BMW car parked on Beach Road outside the former Repulse Bay Hotel. Yam's seat was lowered. He was wearing a button-down shirt, trousers and leather shoes. A coat was lying on the back seat. Police and fire service officers broke a window of the car to open the door
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and Yam was certified dead at the scene. Yam's wife, a public servant who travels frequently, arrived there around 10am accompanied by an elderly woman relative and a maid. She broke down when she saw her husband's body and refused to let go as medics tried to load him into a temporary coffin. Chinese Estates executive director Lau Ming-wai Joseph Lau's son and two female company staff visited Yam's wife at her Pokfield Road, Sai Wan home yesterday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Chinese Estates said the company was notified of his death yesterday morning but refused to comment further. Yam had worked in the design and promotion department of Cheung Kong (Holdings) since the early 1980s. He left the company in 2004 but reentered the real estate business in late 2005 to early 2006, joining the sales department of Kowloon Development. He joined Chinese Estates in April 2007.
