Early life
Stanley Ho in 1973.Credit:
Mr Ho was born on November 25,1921,into the Hotung family,one of Hong Kong's wealthiest and most powerful. When he was 13,his father abandoned the family after being wiped out by a sharemarket crash during the Great Depression.
Mr Ho's studies at Hong Kong University were interrupted by World War II. Fluent in English and Chinese,he was working as a telephone operator for British forces when the colony fell to Japan. He boarded a boat for neutral Macau,joining refugees from mainland China in the dying fishing port.
"I had to throw away my uniform and run to Macau as a refugee,"Mr Ho said in the 2001 interview.
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During the war,Mr Ho said he ran nighttime smuggling and trading trips up the Pearl River Delta,on one occasion surviving a pirate attack.
Eventually,he secured a four-decade monopoly on casinos in Macau,using that home advantage to build an empire that still dominated the industry for years after the local gaming market opened to foreign companies in 2002.
"Macau treated me so well. I went there with 10 dollars in my pocket and became a millionaire before the age of 20,"Mr Ho said.
Made in Macau
Mr Ho helped transform Macau from a sleepy peninsula dotted with seedy,windowless gambling dens into the world's biggest casino centre.
But Mr Ho's interests in Macau,on the coast of southeast China across the mouth of the Pearl River opposite Hong Kong,were not limited to the roulette wheels and baccarat tables.
Stanley Ho (centre) celebrates the the opening of MGM Grand Macau in 2007 with his daughter,Pansy,and then MGM CEO Terrence Lanni.Credit:Reuters
His privately held company,Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau,or STDM,has stakes in everything from luxury hotels to helicopters and horse racing.
Mr Ho lost his gambling monopoly in 2002 when Macau was opened up to competition,three years after the enclave returned to Chinese rule. STDM's main asset,SJM,is facing increasing competition from the other five licensed operators in Macau including US billionaire Sheldon Adelson's Sands China .
SJM's market share in Macau dropped to 14 per cent in 2019 from the more than 30 per cent share it held a decade earlier.
Mr Ho earned the adoration of many Hong Kong and Macau residents for his swashbuckling business style and his philanthropic work. Analysts do not expect his death to have a big impact on the day-to-day operations of Mr Ho's companies.
Stanley Ho's daughter,Pansy (centre),speaks alongside other family members outside a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday.Credit:AP
Shares of the companies in the family empire surged after the news. SJM rose as much as 8.5 per cent,passenger transport firm Shun Tak Holdings Ltd jumped 17.6 per cent and casino operator Melco climbed 4.9 per cent,outpacing a 2 per cent gain for the benchmark index.
Mr Ho spearheaded what is known in Macau asthe junket VIP system,whereby middlemen act on behalf of casinos by extending credit to gamblers and taking responsibility for collecting debts.
Mr Ho occasionally made news with extravagant gestures such as paying $US8.9 million in 2007 for a bronze horse head looted by French troops from China's imperial palace 150 years earlier so he could donate it to a Chinese museum. He also twice bid a record $US330,000 for truffles at charity auctions.
In 2009,Mr Ho had brain surgery after reportedly falling at home. He spent seven months in the hospital and was rarely seen in public afterward,usually in a wheelchair.
One of Mr Ho's other children have also become successful gaming operators in their own right,with daughter Pansy serving as co-chairperson of MGM Resorts'Macau unit.
With Reuters,AAP