Heywood's wife, children left with 'five-digit' sum savings in British pounds

Beijing: Expatriate British businessman Neil Heywood, whose murder has caused political upheaval in China, left his wife and children in a financially uncertain situation in China, prompting a former business associate to pay for their plane tickets to attend his London funeral, a family friend told Reuters. The account marks the first time that details of Heywood’s financial affairs have emerged since he died in southwest China last November. Family friends also revealed more details about the final few days leading up to his death. Police suspect he was the victim of a poisoning engineered by the wife of ousted Chongqing Communist Party boss Bo Xilai, over a business dispute that turned personal. Heywood left his family yuan savings equivalent to a “five-digit” sum in British pounds, the family friend said, raising the possibility that any financial dealings with Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, a former high-powered lawyer, may not have yielded him windfall profits. [caption id=“attachment_282658” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Police suspect that the 41-year-old Briton had been helping Gu move money offshore. Reuters”] [/caption] Police suspect that the 41-year-old Briton had been helping Gu move money offshore in return for a commission on the transaction, sources told Reuters earlier this week. But if such transactions did take place, and he made personal gains from it, Heywood’s widow, known to friends as Lulu but who kept her maiden name Wang, has no knowledge of them, according to the friend’s account. Wang, a native of China’s northeastern city of Dalian where Bo was mayor from 1993 to 2000, and Heywood’s mother, Ann, and sister in London have turned down interview requests. “She doesn’t have a lot of bank savings,” the source said, requesting anonymity, adding that she had to make monthly mortgage repayments on a three-storey town house the family owns in suburban Beijing. When Heywood bought the house a few years ago, similar homes in the gated compound sold for around 3 million yuan, according to a local broker. Today such houses sell for about 7 million yuan following a boom in Beijing real estate. Police believe Gu plotted to murder Heywood after he demanded a larger-than-usual cut of a big transaction and threatened to expose her financial dealings if she refused, sources with knowledge of the investigation said. The scandal, which has brought down Bo, once considered a contender for a top national leadership post, is potentially the most divisive the Communist Party has faced in more than two decades. It was not clear whether Heywood had other bank accounts his wife did not know about or owned assets overseas. If he did, his widow knew nothing of them, the family friend said. Reuters