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Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Stanley Ho files new lawsuit to reclaim casino stake
Lawyers for billionaire Stanley Ho Hung-sun on Wednesday filed a fresh lawsuit seeking the return of his shares in Lanceford - the company that holds the bulk of his wealth - including his stake in the Macau casino business.
Stanley Ho files new lawsuit to reclaim casino stake
Neil Gough 16 February 2011
Lawyers for billionaire Stanley Ho Hung-sun on Wednesday filed a fresh lawsuit seeking the return of his shares in Lanceford - the company that holds the bulk of his wealth - including his stake in the Macau casino business.
A six-page High Court filing made on Ho’s behalf and signed by lawyers Oldham, Li and Nie – but not signed by Ho – seeks to block the family members from taking control of more of his assets. It also accuses the family members of violating an oral agreement made on January 27 to return the Lanceford shares in exchange for Ho dropping an earlier legal action against them.
“Despite being led to believe that settlement proposals would be forthcoming from certain family members of Dr Ho for the return of his interests in Lanceford Company, it has become clear that not all members are ready to resolve the dispute and abide by their father’s wishes,” a press release issued by lawyer Gordon Oldham said.
“Promises made by Pansy and Daisy Ho to return Lanceford Company back to Dr Ho have been broken and it would appear that they do not intend to keep to their word,” it said.
The new suit names Ho’s daughters Pansy Ho Chiu-king and Daisy Ho Chiu-fung as defendants. It also names Lanceford and the two British Islands firms that now control Lanceford: Action Winner (controlled by Ho’s third wife, Ina Chan Un-chan) and Ranillo Investments (controlled by Pansy, Daisy, Maisy, Josie and Lawrence, Ho’s children with his second wife, Lucina Laam King-ying).
The new suit also seeks:
* An injunction to prevent Pansy and Daisy from exercising undue influence in relation to several other of Ho’s interests and equities in other companies belonging to him.
* A remedy for the breach of agreement made by Pansy and Daisy Ho to return Lanceford to Ho.
* The return of the shares that Ho originally held directly in STDM, the Macau Corporation, that were transferred to Lanceford (before Lanceford itself was taken from Ho) as a result of undue influence and/or misrepresentation.
The new lawsuit is the second filed by Oldham in three weeks, and appears to signal the failure of recent behind-the-scenes negotiations among family members attempting to broker a truce in the feud over control of Ho’s fortune - estimated by Forbes magazine last month at US$3.1 billion.
Ho’s health declined after a fall at home in July 2009 that required surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. He remains the chairman of both SJM Holdings and Shun Tak Holdings, but since November has transferred stakes in both of those firms to various members of his families with his second, third and fourth wives.
Ho has had 17 children via four women he acknowledges as wives (Hong Kong banned polygamy in 1971). Today, he has 16 surviving children, three surviving wives and at least 10 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ho’s earlier, broader lawsuit against family members was filed January 26 and named his second wife, their five children, his third wife and his long-time banker Patrick Huen Wing-ming.
It came as part of a bizarre sequence of events: hours before the suit was filed, Ho had appeared on local television with many of the soon-to-be defendants at his side and said he had no intention of suing them.
A series of backroom negotiations between warring family members then followed, including a secret meeting in Macau on January 27 between daughter Pansy, fourth wife Angela Leong On-kei and Angela Ho Chiu-yin, Ho’s daughter via his first wife.
Following these meetings, Ho withdrew his suit on January 29, three days after it was filed. In a video filmed the next day, January 30, and posted on YouTube by lawyer Oldham, the tycoon appeared to say he dropped the lawsuit in exchange for the return of his shares - but that deal failed to materialise.
“I feel a little bit disappointed, because when they said they are willing to surrender all the shares back to me – and asked me not to sue them, I agreed,” Ho tells Oldham in the clip. “I said, ‘All right, I will give everyone a chance. We’ll call it a misunderstanding, so we can start afresh.’”
The focus of the new lawsuit is the issue of new Lanceford shares that shifted ultimate control of STDM took place on December 27. It reduced Stanley Ho’s Lanceford stake from 100 per cent to 0.02 per cent, and boosted third wife Chan and the five children’s stake to 99.98 per cent from zero.
Lanceford is the firm that holds Ho’s controlling 31.655 per cent stake in 50-year-old conglomerate Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM). STDM in turn owns 55.7 per cent of SJM Holdings, which indirectly operates 20 of Macau’s 33 casinos and last year booked more gambling revenue than the entire Las Vegas Strip.
Founded in 1962 as Macau’s gaming monopoly, STDM reigned for four decades as the former Portuguese colony’s largest taxpayer and biggest private employer.
STDM also owns stakes in: casinos in Portugal, Vietnam and North Korea, investments in five Macau hotels, tracts of real estate, department stores, Macau airport, a fleet of corporate jets, a cross-border helicopter service, shipping operations and the Macau horse and dog-racing tracks.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Gordon Oldham said Ho had been “very annoyed and disappointed” with some of his family members in recent weeks.
“We wrote to the lawyers of Pansy and Daisy lawyers several times – but there was no concrete response from them. They refused to talk to their father.” he told reporters.
“They don’t want to resolve the matter with their father, and so far have kept quiet,” Oldham added.
He said Ho insists his shares in Lanceford be returned and hopes his family can be more co-operative.
2 comments:
Stanley Ho files new lawsuit to reclaim casino stake
Neil Gough
16 February 2011
Lawyers for billionaire Stanley Ho Hung-sun on Wednesday filed a fresh lawsuit seeking the return of his shares in Lanceford - the company that holds the bulk of his wealth - including his stake in the Macau casino business.
A six-page High Court filing made on Ho’s behalf and signed by lawyers Oldham, Li and Nie – but not signed by Ho – seeks to block the family members from taking control of more of his assets. It also accuses the family members of violating an oral agreement made on January 27 to return the Lanceford shares in exchange for Ho dropping an earlier legal action against them.
“Despite being led to believe that settlement proposals would be forthcoming from certain family members of Dr Ho for the return of his interests in Lanceford Company, it has become clear that not all members are ready to resolve the dispute and abide by their father’s wishes,” a press release issued by lawyer Gordon Oldham said.
“Promises made by Pansy and Daisy Ho to return Lanceford Company back to Dr Ho have been broken and it would appear that they do not intend to keep to their word,” it said.
The new suit names Ho’s daughters Pansy Ho Chiu-king and Daisy Ho Chiu-fung as defendants. It also names Lanceford and the two British Islands firms that now control Lanceford: Action Winner (controlled by Ho’s third wife, Ina Chan Un-chan) and Ranillo Investments (controlled by Pansy, Daisy, Maisy, Josie and Lawrence, Ho’s children with his second wife, Lucina Laam King-ying).
The new suit also seeks:
* An injunction to prevent Pansy and Daisy from exercising undue influence in relation to several other of Ho’s interests and equities in other companies belonging to him.
* A remedy for the breach of agreement made by Pansy and Daisy Ho to return Lanceford to Ho.
* The return of the shares that Ho originally held directly in STDM, the Macau Corporation, that were transferred to Lanceford (before Lanceford itself was taken from Ho) as a result of undue influence and/or misrepresentation.
The new lawsuit is the second filed by Oldham in three weeks, and appears to signal the failure of recent behind-the-scenes negotiations among family members attempting to broker a truce in the feud over control of Ho’s fortune - estimated by Forbes magazine last month at US$3.1 billion.
Ho’s health declined after a fall at home in July 2009 that required surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. He remains the chairman of both SJM Holdings and Shun Tak Holdings, but since November has transferred stakes in both of those firms to various members of his families with his second, third and fourth wives.
Ho has had 17 children via four women he acknowledges as wives (Hong Kong banned polygamy in 1971). Today, he has 16 surviving children, three surviving wives and at least 10 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ho’s earlier, broader lawsuit against family members was filed January 26 and named his second wife, their five children, his third wife and his long-time banker Patrick Huen Wing-ming.
It came as part of a bizarre sequence of events: hours before the suit was filed, Ho had appeared on local television with many of the soon-to-be defendants at his side and said he had no intention of suing them.
A series of backroom negotiations between warring family members then followed, including a secret meeting in Macau on January 27 between daughter Pansy, fourth wife Angela Leong On-kei and Angela Ho Chiu-yin, Ho’s daughter via his first wife.
Following these meetings, Ho withdrew his suit on January 29, three days after it was filed. In a video filmed the next day, January 30, and posted on YouTube by lawyer Oldham, the tycoon appeared to say he dropped the lawsuit in exchange for the return of his shares - but that deal failed to materialise.
“I feel a little bit disappointed, because when they said they are willing to surrender all the shares back to me – and asked me not to sue them, I agreed,” Ho tells Oldham in the clip. “I said, ‘All right, I will give everyone a chance. We’ll call it a misunderstanding, so we can start afresh.’”
The focus of the new lawsuit is the issue of new Lanceford shares that shifted ultimate control of STDM took place on December 27. It reduced Stanley Ho’s Lanceford stake from 100 per cent to 0.02 per cent, and boosted third wife Chan and the five children’s stake to 99.98 per cent from zero.
Lanceford is the firm that holds Ho’s controlling 31.655 per cent stake in 50-year-old conglomerate Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM). STDM in turn owns 55.7 per cent of SJM Holdings, which indirectly operates 20 of Macau’s 33 casinos and last year booked more gambling revenue than the entire Las Vegas Strip.
Founded in 1962 as Macau’s gaming monopoly, STDM reigned for four decades as the former Portuguese colony’s largest taxpayer and biggest private employer.
STDM also owns stakes in: casinos in Portugal, Vietnam and North Korea, investments in five Macau hotels, tracts of real estate, department stores, Macau airport, a fleet of corporate jets, a cross-border helicopter service, shipping operations and the Macau horse and dog-racing tracks.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Gordon Oldham said Ho had been “very annoyed and disappointed” with some of his family members in recent weeks.
“We wrote to the lawyers of Pansy and Daisy lawyers several times – but there was no concrete response from them. They refused to talk to their father.” he told reporters.
“They don’t want to resolve the matter with their father, and so far have kept quiet,” Oldham added.
He said Ho insists his shares in Lanceford be returned and hopes his family can be more co-operative.
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