As pressure grows on Macau to discover new sources of revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines some other future for the other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng is performing what she’ll to assist Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun may 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 also in November held her own annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibition to advertise the work of young art graduates in September.
“Macau has been evolving,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t want to rely just for the gaming industry. We want more families to come here for holidays, you want to boost our cultural and inventive industries.”
This is a politically correct view for the daughter of an casino magnate. Macau is within the cross hairs of Beijing’s fight against corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging town to quit its dependence on the gaming sector, the taxes from where buy most public expenditures, back throughout the boom years, when the “build it and they’re going to come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers joined with a slowing economy have gone up the pressure to discover new revenues.
Fundamental change may be slow to come. Five casinos have opened since 2012 and much more are stored on the way, including two from branches of 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 Sabrina ho‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
So may be Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all just a little of soft advertising for the clan?
Well, China’s biggest auction house is treating her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections can help it get into a brand new and wealthy market where no international house carries a presence. In exchange, Ho says, sherrrd like the auctions to assist attract tourists and maybe encourage the city’s 600,000 residents to formulate more of a desire for culture. Their bond, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 per cent of Poly as well as the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho spent my youth in the middle of art and other collectables of her parents but she’s new to angling towards the auctions business. After graduating with the arts degree in the University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she handled the branding and marketing side of the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I love art and I asked Poly if I perform in their free time within their Hong Kong office, to find out about the auction world,” she says.
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