Macau tycoon Stanley Ho (何鴻燊) said on television yesterday that a spat with relatives whom he accused of stealing his US$3.1 billion empire was “resolved.”
The comments came hours after the 89-year-old Ho insisted some of his family had “robbed” his flagship SJM Holdings that he had spent five decades building — through the transfer of a 31.7 percent stake in Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, SA (STDM) to five of his children and the woman he refers to as his third wife — and he planned to sue. Those comments were made through his lawyer.
“Throughout this saga, I was very unhappy and my family was too,” the wheelchair-bound tycoon said, reading from a giant cue card and surrounded by relatives.
Photo: Reuters
“I love my family. Never have we sued each other ... The matter has been resolved,” he said.
STDM owns 56 percent of Hong Kong-listed SJM Holdings Ltd, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
SJM, with a market value of US$9.2 billion, runs most of the casinos in Macau, where gambling revenue is four times that of the Las Vegas Strip.
“I have been really unhappy recently because of the disputes, my family members were unhappy as well,” Ho said, reading a statement broadcast by Television Broadcasts Ltd (TVB). “I love my families very much.”
Ho dismissed the lawyer he had hired to contest the dispute, according to the interview on TVB.
“If they can get around the table and resolve this, it’s mission accomplished,” Gordon Oldham, who had said Ho hired him to get his stake back, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Oldham, senior partner at law firm Oldham, Li & Nie, said he still considered himself Ho’s lawyer because he hadn’t heard from the billionaire since Tuesday. “I am in a holding pattern.”
Some of Ho’s family members were meeting at the home of Chan Un-chan (陳婉珍), whom the tycoon calls his third wife, Oldham said.
The transfer of the STDM shareholding was disclosed in a statement on Monday.
Ho gave written authorization for the transfer, Brunswick Group LLP, the public-relations company representing Chan and Ho’s children Pansy, Daisy, Maisy, Josie and Lawrence, said on Tuesday.
Brunswick later produced a printed document on Ho’s letterhead and a handwritten letter saying he was firing Oldham and keeping the originally announced allocation of shares in the family vehicle Lanceford Co as “100 percent” his intention. Both documents appeared to bear his signature.
The five children are by the woman Stanley Ho refers to as his second wife, Lucina Laam King-ying (藍瓊纓).
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