NEWSMAKER-Macau casino king Stanley Ho makes late roll of dice
HONG KONG, July 16 (Reuters) - Billionaire Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho took his gambling company public on Wednesday, in a dicey late bid to fortify his casino empire from Las Vegas rivals after staving off a bitter family legal challenge.
The 86-year-old Ho, who hails from one of Hong Kong's most illustrious families and is among the world's richest men, has shown little inclination to slow down -- recently jogging a leg of the Olympic torch relay when it passed through Macau.
Yet weak market sentiment and a slowdown in Macau's gaming sector have eroded his gaming empire's once lucrative monopolistic earnings -- posing a stern challenge in the twilight of the wily octogenarian's meandering career.
Ho's gaming flagship, Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM) Holdings (0880.HK), listed on Hong Kong's stock exchange on Wednesday after repeated delays forced by court challenges from his estranged sister, Winnie Ho, in a protracted dispute over their knotted shareholdings in the parent company.
For a story on the first day performance of SJM, click [ID:nHKG186258]
Sometimes known as the godfather of gambling, Ho, a patriarch of mixed European and Chinese parentage, heads an extended clan of 17 children born to his four wives.
He is worth $8 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the world's 113th wealthiest individual.
One of his daughters, Josie Ho, has forged a career as an Asian film star known for risque roles, while another daughter, Pansy Ho, who helps run part of Ho's corporate empire and Macau's MGM Grand, is regarded as one of Asia's most powerful businesswomen.
Family feuds have long dogged Ho, however, with his sister Winnie having launched over 30 court cases against him and penned an autobiography called "Struggling with the Devil".
The former Portuguese colony's transformation from a seedy gambling haven into a Las Vegas-style entertainment paradise since 2002 has meant stiff competition for Ho, although he still controls one of six gaming licences in Macau and at the end of 2007 owned 18 of the 28 casinos in the enclave.
Ho has built a sprawling gaming empire around the Pacific Rim, including casinos in off-the-beaten track gaming markets such as North Korea and Vietnam.
The tycoon shuttles between Hong Kong and Macau by helicopter or on one of his high-speed jetfoils, while overseeing a far-flung business empire that includes banking, broadcasting, air services and a horse racing monopoly in Macau.
Besides the roulette wheels and slot machines that made his fortune, Ho also runs luxury hotels around Asia as well as plane, ferry and helicopter services and major real estate projects.
His Hong Kong-listed conglomerate, Shun Tak Holdings Ltd (0242.HK), boasts the world's largest jetfoil fleet, carrying visitors between Hong Kong and Macau, an hour's sea voyage apart.
Ho loves the limelight and the media tracks the jet-setting socialite as closely as Asia's movie stars.
The dapper Ho was an avid ballroom dancer and tennis player but is increasingly seen with a walking stick as the years catch up.
RICHES TO RAGS TO RICHES AGAIN
Born in Hong Kong in 1921 and related to the famed and wealthy Ho Tung family of Chinese and European descent, Ho's privileged upbringing was short-lived. At 13, his father lost everything in the stock market and fled to Vietnam, abandoning his wife and children.
Ho was determined to succeed and earned a place at the University of Hong Kong. Though World War Two intervened, Ho's luck held. He left school and worked for seven days for the Air Raid Service Department before the Japanese captured Hong Kong.
"I earned HK$10 ($1.28) out of the seven days ... then I went to Macau," he once told Reuters in an interview.
"I was a very poor man," he said. "I started with only HK$10. That was my capital."
He got a job with the Macau government, bartering goods with the Japanese. The experience led to his own trading company and he became a millionaire.
In the early 60's, he bid for the Macau gaming monopoly being offered by the Portuguese in the largely forgotten Asian outpost.
Ho won the concession, built a new harbour, added high-speed boats to lure Hong Kong's avid gamblers and created the cash cow that made his Asian empire possible.
Ironically, the casino king doesn't gamble.
"I have always told my children and my good friends: 'For God's sake, never gamble heavily and if you can avoid it, don't ever gamble'," he told the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1999.
In recent years, Ho has sought to burnish his credentials as a Chinese patriot through lavish gifts to the state.
Last year, he paid a record $8.9 million for a historically symbolic bronze horse's head offered by Sotheby's, which had been plundered from Beijing's Old Summer Palace in 1860, and donated it back to China as a repatriated state treasure. (Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Lincoln Feast)
