Billionaire Stanley Ho’s dispute with some family members over ownership of their gambling business has been fully resolved and he has withdrawn his lawsuit, according to an e-mailed statement from his office.
A settlement agreement was executed on March 8 among all branches of Ho’s family on the basis of “mutual understanding and mutual accommodation,” according to the e-mail received yesterday evening and confirmed by Ho’s secretary, Janet Wong.
Ho’s privately held Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau SA invests in construction, hotels, Macau’s airline, and owns a stake in Hong Kong-listed casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd. (880) worth at least HK$11.7 billion ($1.5 billion). Ho had said daughters Pansy and Daisy had seized his 31.7 percent holding.
“We have agreed that we shall work together and continue to develop the gambling business in Macau founded by Dr. Ho and operated by the Ho family to enable it to flourish,” Ho and his family wrote in the statement. Ho said he’d withdrawn a writ filed on Feb. 16 against daughters Pansy Ho and Daisy Ho.
Ho, who formerly had a casino monopoly in Macau, and his family still take in more than 50 cents of every dollar bet in the Chinese enclave. The 89-year-old was released from hospital last March after a seven-month stay, and was briefly readmitted on Jan. 31.
Former Monopoly
Ho built his fortune over five decades after Macau’s colonial government granted him and his partners a gambling monopoly in 1962. The monopoly wasn’t renewed after 2001 and Macau eventually allowed rivals, including Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) and Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN), founded by billionaire Steve Wynn.
The Ho family members agreed to discharge their duties to the family companies, closely held STDM and publicly traded SJM Holdings Ltd., according to yesterday’s statement. The dispute was resolved “amicably,” the family said in the statement.
Wong, Ho’s secretary, declined to comment on the contents of the settlement and Crystal Chan, an external spokeswoman for the family’s Lanceford Co. at Brunswick Group, said she couldn’t immediately provide further information. Ho’s lawyer, Gordon Oldham, of Oldham, Li & Nie, didn’t return a voice mail message left after regular business hours.
SJM, which operates most of the casinos in Macau, fell 0.2 percent to HK$12.10 in Hong Kong yesterday. The stock has lost 12 percent since Jan. 24, when SJM said Ho’s holdings had been transferred to family members.
The Feb. 16 lawsuit had sought an order declaring that the transfer of 99.98 percent of the shares in Lanceford, which owns 31.7 percent of closely held STDM, was made without Stanley Ho’s approval.
Pansy Ho and Daisy Ho “improperly and/or illegally” transferred the Lanceford stake to a company they control along with their siblings and another controlled by Chan Un-chan, whom Ho refers to as his third wife, according to the writ.
The case was Dr. Stanley Ho v. Ho Chiu King, Pansy et al, HCA268/2011 in the High Court of Hong Kong.
To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Fellman in New York at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Longid at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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