March 25, 2008Hot on the heels of our precious invitation from Melco PBL to attend the City of Dreams Topping-out Ceremony on 1 April 2008 at 12.10pm, comes the surprising news about James Packer’s Crown Macau enjoying a huge turn-around, making it the busiest casino in the world in terms of betting volume!
City of Dreams Complex
Posted in City of Dreams, Crown Macau, Galaxy Entertainment, James Packer, Lawrence Ho, Melco Crown, Stanley Ho, Theatre of Dreams 
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March 18, 2008It has been a year of activity and inactivity, events and non-events, giddy successes and flops, and most of all, lessons on what to do or not to in Macau.Stanley Ho’s SJM unveiled its answer to the new operators, the Grand Lisboa, in February 2007. Then came Crown Macau in April 2007, the gargantuan Venetian Macao in September 2007, followed by MGM Grand Macau in December 2007, followed lastly by Stanley Ho’s Ponte 16 Casino on 1 February 2008.
Some readers have raised eyebrows on the lack of commentary on my part on the new SJM properties, saying that I focused purely on the new entrants to the market.
Posted in Macau Casino No Comments »
March 3, 2008Rumors are flying that Rafael Hui Si- yan has his eyes on becoming Macau’s next chief executive. National People’s Congress Standing Committee member Dr Stanley Ho, who is in Beijing, was ominously silent about it yesterday.
The refusal by the “god of gambling” to say anything on the subject suggests that there is more to that rumor than meets the eye.
Posted in Macau General, Macau Government, Social and Politics, Stanley Ho No Comments »
February 29, 2008The governments of Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macau yesterday endorsed the financing scheme for bridges linking the three places and the massive project will soon proceed to public tenders. Macau’s casino magnate Dr Stanley Ho has said that he is interested in bidding for the project.
It is expected a number of state- owned enterprises will play a major role in building the bridges expected to cost between US$4-5 billion. The Hong Kong listed China Communication Construction Company and China Railway have a long history in building infrastructure projects in the mainland, Hong Kong and overseas.
Posted in Development, Infrastructure, Macau Business, Macau General, Macau Government, STDM | SJM, Social and Politics, Stanley Ho 1 Comment »
February 6, 2008Here is an interesting observation by David McKee from LasVegasAdvisor.com saying that Dr Stanley Ho’s days are numbered. Well we are not so sure if we can agree with him on that one!
Toward the bottom of an otherwise run-of-the-mill report on Las Vegas Sands‘ year-end numbers, Sands supremo Sheldon Adelson lets fly with a bombshell: Not only will there be no new casino concessions in 2009, when Macao Chief Executive Edmund Ho leaves office, there will be fewer. (Bad news for Harrah’s, this. They’re really banking on a new round of concessions and, perhaps, subconcessions too.)
Posted in Cotai Strip, Macau Business, Macau Casino, Sheldon Adelson, Stanley Ho, Venetian Macao No Comments »
January 26, 2008SJM, which operates 18 of Macau’s 28 casinos, has been trying to list it’s IPO with aims to raise US$1 billion by selling a 25 percent stake. SJM, which once had a monopoly on Macau gambling, accounted for 42 percent of the territory’s gaming revenue at the end of last year. This percentage is expected to drop to around 20 percent next year, apparently during the first two weeks of 2008 SJM’s share has reportedly dropped to 31 percent. On top of this profit for 2007 is expected to have fallen about 50 percent to US$156 million, down from US$312.5 million a year earlier, this surely must hurt them!
So where does this leave Dr Stanley Ho’s empire, well SJM/STDM has plans to over the next three years to spend more than US$1.4 billion on six new projects. This investment compared to what Galaxy, Melco PBL, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn are spending on their casinos is really peanuts! Please tell me more! »
Posted in Macau Business, Macau Casino, STDM | SJM, Stanley Ho No Comments »
January 18, 2008It appears that investors have for the last 3 months have been seriously dumping Macau Casino related stocks, you just have to look at the numbers below to give you some indication. The question remain will they ever recover again to previous highs? It may be a blessing in disguise that Stanley Ho’s IPO has been blocked after all!
Read full story :: Macau Related Casino Stocks Dropping Over 55%
Posted in James Packer, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage, Melco Crown, Sheldon Adelson, Stanley Ho, Wynn Resorts No Comments »
January 17, 2008As we have been saying here all along, for the umpteemed time Stanley Ho cannot list his company without Winnie’s blessing (see: Stanley to Try Listing Again) as evidenced yesterday whereby the Hong Kong regulators again delayed the listing. So he better start to get her shares dispute sorted as this SJM IPO will never happen without it being resolved.
His siter Winnie Ho has waged a legal campaign, launching no fewer than 30 lawsuits against her brother since 2001 to reclaim ownership of a 7.3% stake in the holding company. She moved last week to seek judicial review to overturn a regulatory decision early this month to allow the IPO to go ahead.
Posted in Macau Business, Macau Casino, STDM | SJM, Stanley Ho, Winnie Ho No Comments »
