Pansy Ho is assuming direct control over Macau casino operator MGM China Holdings in the wake of the departure of long-time CEO Grant Bowie.
Ho, 57, a daughter of the late Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho and one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest individuals, told MGM China staff in an internal memo cited in local news reports that she was adding the role of managing director to her existing title as co-chair.
She also announced a major shakeup of the executive ranks. Hubert Wang, currently vice president of finance and CFO, is being promoted to president and chief operating officer overseeing casino operations, hospitality and business development. Kenneth Feng, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of MGM Asia Pacific, has been named president-strategic and CFO in charge of finance, human resources, brand marketing and design, development and property operations. General Counsel and Senior Vice President-Legal Antonio Menano, is adding surveillance and security systems to his responsibilities.
All three “will report to me,” she stated in the memo. “I will be spending more time here and working closely with them and many of you on a day-to-day basis.”
Ho’s move appears to extend the web of influence exercised by Stanley Ho’s heirs over a sizable portion of the Macau gaming industry.
It was through father and daughter that MGM China parent MGM Resorts International gained entry to the market in the first place. The concession was spun off from SJM, Stanley Ho’s casino operations company, and sold to the Las Vegas-based gaming giant for a mere $200 million, albeit with the installation of Pansy Ho as a major shareholder and co-chair. Currently, she owns 22.5 percent of Hong Kong-listed MGM China Holdings.
She is a major presence as well in her father’s principal non-gaming businesses, which are interlocked with the gaming side on various levels.
She is managing director of Hong Kong-based Shun Tak Holdings, which controls ferry service to Macau. Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, also based in Hong Kong, where she is a director and a major shareholder through various entities, is the largest shareholder in SJM Holdings, SJM’s Hong Kong-listed parent.
She is a member of the board of directors of SJM, which directly competes with MGM China, and her younger sister Daisy Ho is SJM’s co-chair alongside Stanley Ho’s fourth wife, Angela Leong. Daisy is Shun Tak’s CFO. Pansy and Daisy’s younger sister Maisy Ho also is an SJM director. Their younger brother Lawrence Ho is chairman and CEO of Macau and Philippines casino operator Melco Resorts & Entertainment, a competitor with both MGM and SJM.
“This continues to be an issue to us with respect to conflicts that may arise,” Sanford Bernstein gaming analysts Vitaly Umansky, Eunice Lee and Kelsey Zhu said in a recent research note. “With respect to SJM, there has been much investor interest in possible management changes at the company since spring 2019 when the STDM board seemed to become in the control of the ‘Pansy Ho Alliance.‘”
Yet, despite her significant stake in MGM China, during Bowie’s tenure as CEO, and prior to the departure earlier this year of James Murren as MGM Resorts chairman and MGM China’s co-chair, she appeared to exert little direct influence over operations.
That that now has changed comes as a “surprise,” said the Sanford Bernstein analysts, who also expressed discomfort with her leadership changes.
“We have concerns around this structure as there is limited direct casino operations and marketing management experience among the top executives,” they stated. “While the next layer of management is not changing (based on what we know today), casino marketing and operations management experience is light at the top with two finance and business development executives now fully in charge of casino and hospitality.”
Bowie, a New Zealand native, was well-regarded in Macau gaming and community circles and his decision to resign ahead of the expiration of his contract also caught the Sanford analysts unawares.
“Aside from his retirement being earlier than expected, the more looming question is who will be his replacement?” they said at the time his departure was announced last month.
They added, “With MGM Cotai not ramping up as well as expected, we still have concerns about managing rebound at the property without strong clear leadership at the helm.”
Bowie joined MGM China as president in 2008, about a year after MGM Macau opened on the Macau peninsula and three years before the company went public in Hong Kong, raising US$1.5 billion in an IPO. He also led the company’s expansion into Cotai, where its second resort debuted in 2018 at a cost of $3.5 billion.
Prior to joining MGM, Bowie was president and general manager of Wynn Resorts (Macau), where he oversaw the development and 2006 opening of Wynn Macau.
