Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | August 2009 18 Macau W hat a difference a week makes. Only days after Dr Stanley Ho was declared the new chairman of what in effect is a cartel of the Macau casino operators designed to tone down competition and see them though the chill of recession, he was out of the game through ill health. It’s been reported that Dr Ho underwent surgery at Hong Kong Adventist Hospital for a blood clot on the brain. Someofthemoreluridmediaspeculation has suggested that Dr Ho’s removal (albeit one hopes on a temporary basis) from the Macau gaming scene could see a reprise of the triad turf wars that broke out in the territory prior to the handover to Chinese administration in 1999. What the basis is for this speculation— other than some vague notion (recycled at regular intervals by United States law enforcement agencies) that shady characters are associated with VIP gaming rooms in Dr Ho’s properties—is anyone’s guess. Succession planning What does seem clear is that the health scarehas focusedattentionon the leadership succession at SJM Holdings, Dr Ho’s Hong Kong-listed casino operating company, as never before. Depending on what you read and whom you believe, SJM is either a top down, command and control organisation, or operated on a ‘divide and rule’ basis. In the latter analysis, SJM is said to have parallel and often overlapping management structures reporting respectively to Dr Ambrose So, the Executive Director, or to Angela Leong, Dr Ho’s fourth consort and mother of his youngest children. The primogeniture model favoured by European feudal aristocracies (i.e., inheritance by the first-born son) is typically found in business dynasties in China and the rest of Asia. But in a business ‘reign’ as long as Dr Ho’s, with 17 children born over the course of more than four decades, a succession style more akin to the Ottoman Empire seems to have emerged over the years. Under the Ottoman system, individual wives would manoeuvre to try and ensure their own (male) children were the last ones standing in the race to the throne. Lawrence Ho, Chairman of Melco International Development and Co- Dynasty Dr Stanley Ho’s recent hospital stay has focused minds on a Macau without the ‘King’ of gambling Dr Ho, third from right, heads the Chamber of Macau Casino Gaming Concessionaires and Sub-concessionaires