Billionaire's £40m for any man who weds his gay daughter

Cecil Chao Sze-tsung, a 76-year-old property billionaire based in Hong Kong, is reportedly offering £40 million to the man who can woo his daughter, Gigi Chao.

He made the surprising announcement after his 33-year-old daughter entered a civil partnership with her girlfriend in France. However, Chao, is not going to let a small matter of his daughter being gay deter him.

The offer

The billionaire apparently told The South China Morning Post that his daughter hadn't entered into a partnership at all. He also outlined what he was looking for in a son-in-law. He said: "I don't mind whether he is rich or poor. The important thing is that he is generous and kind-hearted." Chao says that the money will enable the man who wins his daughter's heart to set himself up in business.

It's an interesting approach from a man who famously said he does not believe in marriage, and has claimed that his playboy lifestyle means he has had 10,000 girlfriends.


Gigi Chao said that in the aftermath of the announcement, men from all over the world took up the challenge through social media. She soon posted on her Facebook account that she is no longer accepting friend requests.

When asked to respond to the bounty her father had put on her marriage, she told the South China Post that "He has an interesting interpretation of me."

Chao can, of course, spend his billions in any way he sees fit, and he is far from the first to find an unusual way to spend it.

Unusual purchases

1. In June this year Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bought 98% percent of Hawaii's sixth biggest island Lanai. He's no stranger to unusual purchases - he once bought a tennis tournament to ensure it stayed in the US.

2. Last month Australian property and mining billionaire Clive Palmer, announced his plan to build a full-size replica of the Titanic. It will be 98% the same, but with a better lookout and more lifeboats.

3. Closer to home, Richard Branson has set up a 'space tourism company', Virgin Galactic, which estimates it will begin running tours in 2014. He has also suggested a future venture could include the colonisation of Mars, although it's not known how seriously we ought to take this comment.

4. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah - the Sultan of Brunei - blew £100 million on a private jet. He let his imagination and his love of gold run free in kitting it out, and among the more unusual fixtures are solid gold sinks in the toilet.

5. But, of course, opulent and bonkers spending is nothing new. Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after she died giving birth to their 14th child. The palace took an incredible 22 years to build.

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