Wednesday 19 November 2008

Stanley Ho warns of more gloom


The current recession will last up to three years and next month will bring even more bad news, casino magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun said yesterday.

Mr Ho said he believed the stock market would rise to 15,000 points after next month and continue rising.

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Guanyu said...

Stanley Ho warns of more gloom

Joyce Man and Fulton Mak
19 November 2008

The current recession will last up to three years and next month will bring even more bad news, casino magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun said yesterday.

The crisis was worse than others in the recent past, and it would last longer.

“If you had asked me in the past, I would have said three or two months, but when this downturn will end, even I can’t tell,” Mr Ho said.

He later said: “I hope that I’m wrong, but this time, I think it will take two to three years to recover.”

Mr Ho was speaking to reporters after taking part in a tennis tournament at the Chinese Recreation Club yesterday.

About 90 per cent of Hong Kong companies will be preparing their year-end figures at the end of next month.

“Their wins and losses, all of it will be exposed,” he said. “I fear there will be more bad news than good news.

“I have been praying. Every night I hope it will get better, but I don’t know whether I should hope. I really worry about December. I’m fearful.”

Real estate prices would fall next month, but Mr Ho advised against buying property yet.

“I wouldn’t be confident enough to [buy] yet,” he said. There would be little movement in the property market as people held on to what they had and waited for December to pass, he predicted.

Despite fears of more mass layoffs after Citibank and HSBC announced job cuts, Mr Ho said he believed real estate firms would not lay off staff - yet. “As far as I know, [the real estate industry] won’t, but if it has no choice, then it will have to,” he said.

But his companies would not cut jobs. “My companies won’t need to,” he said.

Mr Ho said he believed the stock market would rise to 15,000 points after next month and continue rising.

Meanwhile, Henderson Land Development chairman Lee Shau-kee refused to make any predictions about the stock market, saying the financial crisis had made the situation too complicated.

Mr Lee, who has been described as Asia’s Warren Buffett, has had a mixed record of predicting the market’s direction.

He said yesterday: “The financial meltdown makes the [stock] market very choppy and unstable, I have no idea about its outlook.”

Mr Lee said that the market capitalisation of his private investment company, Shau Kee Financial Enterprises, had decreased significantly.

Asked whether there will be any layoffs in his companies, Mr Lee said: “I [haven’t thought] about that, it’s just too early to say.”