As pressure grows on Macau to locate new options for revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines an alternative future for the other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng does what she could to assist Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun might be also known for gracing society and entertainment pages, but also in January she organised the initial Macau sales by China’s state-owned Poly Auction and then in November held her annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibit to advertise the task of young art graduates in September.
“Macau is changing,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t need to rely just for the gaming industry. We want more families ahead for holidays, we want to boost our cultural and creative industries.”
This can be a politically correct view for the daughter of a casino magnate. Macau is within the cross hairs of Beijing’s war on corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging the city to relinquish its obsession with the gaming sector, the required taxes that spend on most public expenditures, back through the boom years, if the “build it and they will come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers coupled with a slowing economy have raised the stress to locate new revenues.
Fundamental change has become slow ahead. Five casinos have opened since 2012 plus much more are stored on the best way, including two from branches in the Ho empire – the Grand Lisboa Palace, led by Ho’s mother, Angela Leong On-kei (Stanley’s so-called “fourth wife”), and MGM Cotai, headed by Stanley ho daughter‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
So might be Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all slightly of soft public relations for the clan?
Well, China’s biggest auction house is treating her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections will help it enter a fresh and wealthy market where no international house features a presence. In turn, Ho says, sherrrd like the auctions to assist attract tourists as well as perhaps let the city’s 600,000 residents to produce a greater portion of an interest in culture. Their bond, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 per cent owned by Poly as well as the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho spent my youth flanked by art and other collectables owned by her parents but she’s a novice for the auctions business. After graduating by having an arts degree from the University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she handled the branding and marketing side in the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I love art and I asked Poly basically could work part-time in their Hong Kong office, to discover the auction world,” she says.
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