Key players in Ho family feud over gambling assets
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho on Tuesday accused his family of misappropriating core parts of his gambling empire and leaving him with “almost nothing” after a share restructuring he said was done without his consent.
The share restructuring leaves Ho with little stake in his Sociedade de Turismoe Diversoes de Macau. S.A. (STDM) which controls STDM – Investments Ltd, the parent company of his gambling flagship SJM Holdings.
Under the restructuring, the 26.8 percent stake in STDM, held by Lanceford Co Ltd, was transferred to new shareholders including Ho’s third wife, Chan Un-chan, and five children from Ho’s second wife, Lucina Laam King-ying. The share proportion has been divided with Chan getting a 50.5 percent stake and the five siblings Pansy Ho, Daisy Ho, Maisy Ho, Josie Ho and Lawrence Ho, splitting the remaining 49.5 percent.
The following are details about key members of Ho’s extended family:
STANLEY HO – The 89-year-old tycoon built his $3.1 billion dollar fortune from scratch, winning a monopoly concession in the former Portuguese colony before it was broken up in 2002. For a Newsmaker click:
LI WAN HUA (Clementine Leitao) – Ho’s first wife died in 2004 at the age of 80. Of Portuguese descent she was well known for her striking looks and dubbed Macau’s “first pretty woman”.
LUCINA LAAM KING-YING – 77 – Ho’s second wife. Both Ho and Laam shared a passion for ballroom dancing, with the pair once dubbed “dancing king and dancing queen”. In the 1980s Ho invested heavily in Canada and Laam emigrated there.
CHAN UN-CHAN – Ho’s third wife – A nurse of his first wife, Chan is relatively low-key and has three children with him.
ANGELA LEONG – Ho’s China-born fourth wife grew up in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and is now managing director of SJM’s operating subsidiary, where she plays a key day-to-day role in Ho’s businesses. A dance instructor, she first met Ho at a ball and their relationship later bloomed on the dance floor.
PANSY HO – A businesswoman deemed one of the most powerful in Asia, Pansy Ho is often considered her father’s natural gambling heir. She’s the managing director of Shun Tak Holdings, a property and transport conglomerate started by her father in 1972, and is a director of STDM, as well as a member of Beijing’s main consultative body, the CPPCC. She also manages the MGM Grand casino with MGM Mirage.
LAWRENCE HO – In his mid-thirties, and often dressed in expensive suits, Lawrence Ho runs Melco Crown Entertainment’s MPEL.O City of Dreams mega casino, a joint venture with Australia’s Crown Ltd CWN.AX headed by James Packer. As the eldest son of Ho, he’s sometimes seen as an heir apparent and runs the City of Dreams casino resort on Macau’s Cotai strip.
JOSIE HO – An film starlet known for daring roles, Josie has carved out an edgy career for herself, playing roles including that of a closeted lesbian teacher as well as a prostitute. She calls herself the “little black sheep” of the family.
