It had never happened. The family of Stanley Ho is almost complete. They are so numerous that they are barely in the frame of the television cameras came to record their joint declaration, formulated by his daughter Pansy, after the death of the patriarch, Tuesday, may 26, at the age of 98 in a hospital in hong kong.
The man and his empire of casinos have survived the japanese invasion, the wars between the triads, to the handover of Macau to Beijing in 1999, at the end of a monopoly, to the landing of the american giants of the game, to the 2008 financial crisis, and even in the countryside, anti-corruption Xi Jinping, as well as 4 “wives” (polygamy was not prohibited until after 1971 in hong Kong…), 11 girls and 6 boys, forming a roster of billionaires, the more ambitious one than the other, “dispute” and, for some, paying the chronicles of manners, to the great joy of the tabloids in hong kong…
the hell of The game
Stanley Ho Chiu-king was born in 1921 in one of the four big families of hong Kong colonial, métis eurasian, operating as ” compradors “. These proxies of the british companies, however, have been bankrupt in the 1930s, and the young Stanley is simple switchboard operator for the british army when the Japanese landed in 1942. It is quick to get rid of his uniform, and escapes arrest because of his features european and empties, finally, into a boat to Macao, Portuguese colony neighbouring territory, in principle, neutral, nest of spies, and already “the hell of the game” emerging, according to the title of a best-selling French of Maurice Dekobra, published in 1938.
Stanley Ho is enriched insolently in trafficker with the continent, guarantees protection of the local chief of the secret police in japan by improvising a tutor for his son, and fencing between the crackdown against smugglers, the bombing and the pirates of the bay of the Pearl river. “I made a lot of money with the war “, confessed it in 1995 to the orientalist british Philip Snow – surrounded by his bodyguards, in a thick fog of cigarette smoke, obviously.
Its acquired assets is multiplied by the real estate boom of the hong Kong of the post-war period, and finally reinvested in Macau when he won in 1961, a monopoly to modernize the casinos of the colony. The Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM) and its flagship, the Lisboa, will thrive thanks to the opening of communist China from 1979 on renting of VIP rooms to the class budding chinese businessmen, and, according to surveys of american, canadians and filipinos, thanks to the triads come to launder their illegal income.
In the 1990s, the empire of the “king of the game” is already torn by her abundant offspring, to which it begins to delegate power. His authority is challenged, the gambling halls of Macau will continue to grow and are the scene of a gang war between the triads and local hong kong. Around 1995, a kidnapping attempt, co-sponsored by Wan Kuok-koi, head of the triad of Macau 14K, nicknamed ” Tooth broken “, and usurping the title of ” king of casinos “, obliges even Stanley to strengthen dramatically its security…
Pansy Ho, the heir of a rebel
The order is eventually restored by Beijing after the handover in 1999. Its american competitors, the giants of Las Vegas is about to open huge palaces to international standards, and give Stanley Ho defeated to advance with the end of the monopoly of the STDM, in 2002. Against the advice of his own sister, Winnie, a former business partner of the time of the war, disowned in the 2000s after strong quarrels of money, Stanley is designated by the eldest of his second marriage, Pansy, as dauphine legitimate. It is with it as it modernizes its group, the divides between the three main heirs, and opens, in 2008, a spectacular Grand Lisboa skyscraper in the shape of a lotus flower designed by French architect Paul Andreu, who has become the symbol of the Skyline macanaise. The sign of his triumph : Macao overrides at this time Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world. Generous philanthropist and patron repatriation of works looted by the Western powers in the Nineteenth century, representative of hong Kong to the people’s political consultative Conference chinese, Stanley has also managed to morph into the “contractor” patriotic ” in the eyes of the authorities of the continent.
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It will be known even had to tack between the wrecks and the piracy of old age. Relieved of a good portion of its billion by the financial crisis, hospitalized for several months in 2009, emerging from a heavy surgery of the brain, he discovers at the end of 2010 that his own family has taken advantage of his weakness to make him sign the legation of his empire. Re-established in January 2011, he regained control of the clan by a coup de force in a few days, and it is in 2018, the canonical age of 96 years, that he has passed on the baton to his children, Pansy remaining at the head of the STDM and Shun Tak Holdings, a real estate arm in hong kong, and her younger sister Daisy leader, the family holding company DLSU, while his youngest son, Lawrence manages Melco International, a branch of the group now independent.
“Even if we knew that this day would come, it does not diminish the sadness unspeakable,” said Pansy Ho at the exit of the hospital in the south of the island of hong Kong, where he died, vowing to continue his work. Now billionaire and the richest of hong Kong, as the local media have nicknamed’ the inheritor of a rebel ” is a francophile of long standing : honorary president of the French chamber of commerce of Macao, which she founded in 2008, is very involved in the cultural exchanges franco-chinese ambassador of the Louvre in China since 2012, she has been decorated as a chevalier of the Legion of honor in June 2018.
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