Hong Kong tycoon offers $65 million for wooing lesbian daughter

Hong Kong: A Hong Kong billionaire has announced $65 million reward for any man who would be able to woo and marry his lesbian daughter.

Property and shipping tycoon Cecil Chao has promised the “marriage bounty” following reports that his daughter had wed her long-term girlfriend, BBC reported.

Cecil, who has never married himself, claimed that his daughter was still single and needed a “good husband”.

His daughter’s profile for the networking website LinkedIn says she worked with the British architect Sir Terry Farrell for two years.

She now runs Haut Monde Talent, a model management and PR firm with an office on Hong Kong’s Hennessy Road.

Chao’s search for a husband for his daughter appeared to contradict a description Miss Chao gave of her father in a 2007 interview, The Telegraph reported.

“My father took a hands-off approach in parenting,” she told HK Magazine as quoted by The Telegraph. “I see him as a friend more than a father. My parents never pressure me with high expectations.”

It also exposed a traditional streak in a man known for his playboy way of life. Mr Chao made headlines in 2003 when his Rolls-Royce caught fire while he and his girlfriend were inside. The tycoon has never married and once claimed to have had “intimate relations” with about 10,000 women. This week he denied that he would force his daughter to marry a man, the Telegraph reported.

Same-sex unions are not recognised in Hong Kong, although homosexuality was decriminalised in 1991.

Gigi Chao, a businesswoman and graduate from the University of Manchester, is said to have married her female partner of seven years, Sean Eav, in a ceremony in France earlier this year.

Her flamboyant father, however, rejected such claims as false, adding that his generous offer had already evoked many replies from potential suitors.

IANS