As three "wives" and 16 children of tycoon Stanley Ho grasp for control of his casino fortune, the veneer of professionalism has peeled from his business empire, one of many family-run companies facing succession time bombs in this southern Chinese entrepot.
The ailing, 89-year-old Ho is emblematic of a generation of Asian magnates who made their millions through cosy relationships with the region's political power brokers. They now face a world where governments are less tolerant of monopolies and where globalization has brought competition and innovation that sweeps aside weaker businesses.
Many of the outlandish trappings of the Asian-style crony capitalism found from South Korea to Hong Kong to Indonesia have faded. Still, the family business empires the old order sustained have sprouted numerous branches, creating a tangle of dynastic rivalries that belie the modern patina.
In Ho's case, there is a lot to fight over: his personal wealth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and the lion's share of the Macau gambling industry — the world's biggest. Ho once had a monopoly on Macau's casinos but now his business interests, which are listed on the stock exchange of neighboring Hong Kong, vie against giants like Las Vegas Sands Corp. and MGM Resorts.
Though his illnesses have left him a facsimile of his former flamboyant self, Ho's business rise has paralleled the fortunes of Macau.
The enclave grew from a seedy, colonial outpost administered by corrupt Portuguese administrators into a modern, Chinese-run gambling powerhouse that has overtaken Las Vegas. Macau reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, and the government ended Ho's monopoly in 2002 to boost the economy. Last year, gambling revenues surged to a record $23.5 billion.
Key to Ho's gambling success was his now-deceased first wife, Clementina Leitao, whom he wed in 1948. Her father was a prominent lawyer in Macau, and her connections to Portugal and to Macau high society helped Ho and his partners win the casino monopoly in 1962. Around the same time, Ho married Lucina Laam under a Qing dynasty code which allowed men to take multiple wives. Hong Kong outlawed the practice in 1971.
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