Stanley Ho

Managing Director, STDM

Date of Birth: 25/11/1921

Billionaire Stanley Ho is in the vanguard of Chinese investment in Lusophone Africa. His companies will operate the casino in Luanda's soon-to-be-completed Hotel Intercontinental with Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos, as partner. One of his Portuguese companies, Estoril Sol, is looking for casino licences in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde.

Through the Geocapital subsidiary of his Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM), Ho set up Moza Banco, a joint venture with Moçambique Capitais in 2006. The next year, Geocapital bought 60% of Banco da Africa Ocidental in Guinea Bissau. Last month, Geocapital became the largest private investor in Caixa Económica de Cabo Verde.

Geocapital is moving into green technology. It signed an agreement this year with the Cape Verdean government to fund the International Scientific Research and Technological Development Centre, which will invest in biofuels. Plans are afoot to plant crops in Guinea Bissau and Mozambique as well (AAC Vol 2 No 7).

Ho was born in 1921 to wealthy Hong Kong parents. His home was shattered when his father lost his fortune to a stock market crash and abandoned the family. Young Ho attended Hong Kong University on scholarship, but his education was interrupted by the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in 1941. Ho fled to Macau, where he found work in a trading company and built his wealth smuggling goods into China. He bought a kerosene factory and the business really took off after the United States bombed his competitor. In 1962, Ho and business partner Henry Fok founded STDM, which nabbed the gambling monopoly in Macau and held it until 2002. STDM transformed Macau: the port city became the world largest gambling centre and a major tourist draw.