As pressure grows on Macau to locate new sources of revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines an alternative future for that other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng is doing what she will to help Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun might be better known for gracing society and entertainment pages, however in January she organised the first Macau sales by China’s state-owned Poly Auction and then in November held her annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibition to advertise the project of young art graduates in September.
“Macau is beginning to change,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t desire to rely just around the gaming industry. We’d like more families into the future to put holidays, we would like to boost our cultural and artistic industries.”
This is the politically correct view for that daughter of an casino magnate. Macau is in the cross hairs of Beijing’s fight against corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging the location to relinquish its dependence on the gaming sector, the taxes from which pay for most public expenditures, back throughout the boom years, once the “build it and they will come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers joined with a slowing economy have gone up pressure to locate new revenues.
Fundamental change continues to be slow into the future. Five casinos have opened since 2012 plus more take presctiption the best way, including two from branches with 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 Casino tycoon daughter‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
So can be Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all just a bit of soft pr for that clan?
Well, China’s biggest auction house is treating her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections might help it enter a fresh and wealthy market where no international house has a presence. In return, Ho says, sherrrd like the auctions to help attract tourists and maybe let the city’s 600,000 residents to develop much more of an interest in culture. The partnership, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 per-cent of Poly as well as the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho grew up in the middle of art along with other collectables of her parents but she actually is a novice for the auctions business. After graduating with an arts degree in the University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she worked on the branding and marketing side with the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I love art i asked Poly if I could work in their free time inside their Hong Kong office, to find out about the auction world,” she says.
For details about Casino tycoon daughter explore this web portal: this