Move gives reins to Pansy & Co.
SJM Holdings Ltd. Chairwoman Daisy Ho, daughter of Macau casino titan Stanley Ho, has come out in support of the recent alliance that now has a majority stake in Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, the controlling shareholder of Macau-based casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Ho said, “The shareholders in the alliance all possess irreplaceable goodwill, accumulated through prolonged understanding and exposure in various industry sectors in Macau and Mainland China.
“Together with Timothy Fok, who is co-chairman of SJM, we can leverage and apply these resources to further develop SJM’s competitiveness to pursue the new gaming concession.” Fok heads up the Henry Fok Foundation, which owns a 26.576 percent stake in STDM, GGRAsia reported.
The alliance formed by Pansy Ho in January includes Stanley Ho’s second wife, Lucina Laam King Ying; Pansy’s own companies Lanceford and Interdragon; and the Fok Foundation, named for co-founder of the Ho business empire. Together the partners hold a combined interest in 53 percent of shares in STDM, which in turn holds a 54 percent stake in SJM.
The action gave Pansy the edge over her stepmother, Angela Leong, Stanley Ho’s fourth wife, a co-chair and executive director of SJM Holdings. Both Pansy and Daisy reportedly have frosty relationships with Leong, who is also a Macau legislator.
An anonymous source recently cited by Inside Asian Gaming said the change is “long overdue.” The person added, “It will take years upon years to fix SJM’s operations, (but) this could be the starting point.” But brokerage Bernstein said it will cause an “ugly battle” between the current management including Leong and the newcomers.
“Prior attempts to make changes have amounted to greater complexity,” Bernstein said last month. “The hope that the Pansy Ho-Fok alliance can change the direction of SJM is just that at this stage: ‘hope.’ There remain strong imbedded influences in the SJM organization that leave us skeptical that real solid changes can manifest in the near to medium term.” The analyst team added that Leong and So, along with others in management, “still hold material direct interests in SJM and hold considerable sway over SJM operations.”
The Post, on the other hand, said investors “appear to have given their backing to Pansy Ho,” Macau’s new “casino queen.” It noted that shares of Ho’s company, Shun Tak Holdings, rose after she “gained the upper hand in her battle for control of the Macau casino holding company co-founded by her father, ‘King of Gambling’ Stanley Ho Hung-sun.”
Gordon Tsui Luen-on, managing director of investment at Hantec Pacific in Hong Kong, said the agreement between Pansy Ho and the Fok Foundation confirms that she and her allies “have majority control of the STDM and hence SJM Holdings. With a single majority voice, this will remove the uncertain of the battle between different shareholders on the future development of the casino company. This has attracted investors to buy shares of SJM and Shun Tak.”
Louis Tse Ming-kwong, director of Hong Kong brokerage VC Wealth Management, said the agreement has helped to bolster investor confidence in Shun Tak and SJM. “The share price rose on the news of the agreement, which may well be only a short term phenomenon. For the longer term, investors would need to wait to see if the new alliance can really help SJM and Shun Tak to improve their business development and profit before they would further invest in the company,” Tse said.
SJM Holdings controls 20 of Macau’s 39 casinos. Pansy Ho, who is also co-chair and executive director of MGM China Holdings Ltd., is currently worth $5.3 billion.
