By Shai Oster
Wall Street Journal
HONG KONG—Macau gambling magnate Stanley Ho fired a new salvo in the battle over his fortune at two of his daughters, one of whom is among the most successful of his many offspring.
Lawyers for the ailing 89-year-old Mr. Ho filed suit Wednesday attempting to recover a US$1.4 billion stake in his casino company. Efforts to end a month-long family quarrel over a division of his assets fell apart earlier this month.
Wednesday’s action was the second time Mr. Ho has sued family members in the dispute. He dropped an earlier case, saying he hoped to resolve the matter amicably. The new suit makes it appear less likely the family will reach a speedy solution, raising the possibility that the family casino business could suffer without clarity about who is in charge.
Wednesday’s suit names Mr. Ho’s daughters Pansy and Daisy as defendants. Both are children of Mr. Ho’s second wife. He has 16 known children from the four women he calls his wives.
The new action accuses them and companies associated with them and his third wife of failing to fulfill a promise to return their father’s assets after they were divided up late last year. The third wife, Ina Chan, isn’t named as a defendant.
The public-relations firm representing the defendants declined to comment. In the past they have said the division of assets fulfilled Mr. Ho’s wishes and that they hope to resolve any dispute out of court.
The dispute centers on control of an obscure investment vehicle, Lanceford Co., in which Mr. Ho kept his shares of the company that controls SJM Holdings Ltd., the casino operator that controls about 30% of the Macau gambling market. Macau’s gambling revenue is forecast to top US$30 billion this year.
Mr. Ho’s lawyer has said the patriarch planned to divide his assets equally among all four branches of his family.
But late last year, Mr. Ho’s holding was diluted to nearly zero, with the rest split between only two family factions: his third wife and the children of his second wife, including Pansy Ho, Daisy Ho and their brother Lawrence Ho. Lawrence Ho isn’t a defendant in the latest suit.
“Promises made by Pansy and Daisy Ho to return Lanceford Co. Ltd. back to Dr. Ho have been broken and it would appear that they do not intend to keep to their word,” Gordon Oldham, Stanley Ho’s lawyer, said in a prepared statement.
“Dr. Ho is very, very annoyed,” Mr. Oldham said at a news conference.
Mr. Ho held the monopoly on casino gambling in the former Portuguese colony of Macau for four decades until foreign competitors were allowed in 2002. Even as his market share has decreased, Macau gambling revenue has grown sharply as mainland Chinese have flocked across the border to the only Chinese territory with legalized casinos.
Among the two defendants, Pansy Ho, the elder daughter at 48, has been especially prominent in Hong Kong and Macau business circles, and co-owns a Macau casino with MGM Resorts International.
A graduate from the Santa Clara University in California with a degree in marketing and communications, she had been a fixture in society pages when she was younger but has stepped outside her father’s shadow as a business leader in her own right.
In 1987, she founded a public-relations firm focusing on high-end luxury brands. She’s currently managing director of Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., a property and transportation company based in Hong Kong that her father started to shuttle gamblers from Hong Kong in high-speed ferries to his Macau casinos. She also sits on several political advisory bodies in mainland China. Daisy Ho is Shun Tak’s chief financial officer.
With her father’s financial backing, Pansy Ho paired up with MGM Resorts, allowing the U.S.-based group to open its first casino in Macau in 2007.
That partnership later came under scrutiny by New Jersey gambling regulators, who feared her father’s alleged criminal ties might influence MGM’s Atlantic City operations. Mr. Ho has denied the allegations and has never been charged with a crime. MGM at the time disagreed that Ms. Ho was an unsuitable partner and decided to sell its share of the New Jersey casino rather than sever its ties with Ms. Ho.
The joint venture has applied for an initial public offering in Hong Kong that could raise up to $800 million in the first half.
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SJM has said the asset transfer won’t affect management or company strategy.
Amid a broader decline in the Hong Kong stock market, SJM shares are down about 20% since their high in mid-January, though they remain more than double what they were a year ago.
