Sherman responded that the dispute concerned the conduct of Leng Beng’s former personal assistant, Catherine Wu. At the time, Wu was an adviser to CDL’s hotel subsidiary, Millennium & Copthorne (M&C), but was deemed to have interfered in matters well beyond her scope and was seen as exercising enormous influence.
If an award were given for the most exciting annual general meeting (AGM) last year, real estate giant City Developments (CDL) (SGX:C09
) would likely win it. Last year’s AGM was held in the wake of a boardroom dispute between Kwek Leng Beng, CDL’s executive chairman, and his son, CDL group CEO Sherman Kwek.
On Feb 25, 2025, Leng Beng accused Sherman of orchestrating a boardroom coup and filed a lawsuit against him. According to Leng Beng, Sherman and a group of directors — Ai Ai Wong, Carolina Chan, Daniel Desbaillets and Philip Lee — had bypassed CDL’s nomination committee when they hastily appointed two new independent directors to the board: Wong Su Yen and Jennifer Duong Young.
