Succession Fight for Evergreen Heats Up

 

The struggle between the heirs to Evergreen Group has escalated as the three older brothers reportedly took drastic measures to undermine their younger brother’s accession to the helm of the family-run shipping and transportation empire.

 

Evergreen Group founder Chang Yung-fa died on Jan. 20 and left a December 2014 will that named his youngest son, Chang Kuo-wei, chairman of Eva Airways and the only son of his second wife, as his successor and the sole inheritor of his estate worth billions of New Taiwan dollars.

 

Chang Yung-fa’s eldest son, Chang Kuo-hua , led his two brothers by his father’s first wife in moving to dissolve the group’s top management team during an extraordinary board meeting, effectively stripping Chang Kuo-wei of the chairmanship, local media said, without naming sources.

 

Following this incident, the Taiwan Stock Exchange has urged Evergreen Group to handle the management restructuring properly in order not to damage the interests of investors.

 

The group’s publicly listed units — Evergreen International Storage & Transportation Corp, Evergreen Marine Corp and EVA Airways — said in separate filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that their operations would not be affected by the succession process.

 

Foreign investors of the company (which hold more than 26 percent of total stock) will play a pivotal role in elections during the shareholders meeting. Family stakeholders, including its maritime logistics division, account for another 40 percent.

 

Current board members of the airline include the deceased Chang, CKW, two chairs of Evergreen Marine Corp, two from the Huakuang Investment Group (listed under the British Virgin Islands), along with three independent board members.