Kwok family’s interests in British Columbia

The Kwok family also has vast, private investments, notably in real estate markets around the world, including Vancouver. It established Aspac Developments in Vancouver via Mecca Holdings, which is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. It continues to wholly-own Aspac, according to the company’s director Raymond Li, who said he didn’t know how the company was divided among “all three (Kwok) brothers and (their) mother. We are accountable to the family as a whole.” In 1993, Aspac partnered with Marathon Realty to redevelop industrial land at Coal Harbour. Today, some of the city’s most expensive, multi-million dollar condos are in the eight towers built there by Aspac. In 2007, Aspac beat out other local companies with Hong Kong roots to pay the City of Richmond about $141 million for 17 acres of riverside land next to the Olympic oval where it has since built the first phase of its River Green development. At the University of B.C., it built a 17-storey highrise, The Wesbrook. The recent court decision bars Thomas Kwok from taking a company directorship for five years, which is the same length as his full prison sentence. Li said Kwok is not a director of Aspac. He did not have details about the directors of Mecca Holdings, which controls Aspac. The directors of companies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands can be kept secret, according to shareholder activist David Webb, adding the ban “probably doesn’t include overseas companies unless they are registered to do business in Hong Kong.”