Clementina Leitão

Ho’s first wife, Clementina Leitao, came from a prestigious family in Portugal and was known as the “greatest beauty in Macao.” Ho fell in love at first sight with Leitao and they were married in 1942. The couple had four children — Robert, Jane, Angela and Deborah. Leitao’s health deteriorated in the 1970s. 黎婉華（Clementina Leitao）是澳門土生土長的葡萄牙人，Leitao在葡萄牙是個大家族，黎婉華的祖先曾在葡國任高官，她的祖父做過澳門律師，更是那年代澳門的唯一公證人，黎婉華父親黎登與何鴻燊一樣風流，有四個太太，子女分散世界各地，有傳共四十多人，但獲黎家「認可」的只有廿三人。. Mr Ho was born in Hong Kong, where polygamy remained legal until 1971. Over the years, he fathered 17 children with four women he referred to as his “wives” — Clementina Leitao, who died in. Jane Ho was one of the four children born to Stanley Ho's first wife, Clementina Leitao, who was from a prestigious Portuguese family. According to media reports, Ho studied law in England when.

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Stanley Ho Hung Sun
Stanley Ho Wives
Stanley Ho Is Jewish
Angela Ho Chiu Yin

Tycoon Stanley Hohas 17 children from four wives. Picture: AFP/AFPSource:AFP

Stanley Ho is known as the “king of gambling” — and with an $8.4 billion casino empire behind him, it’s not hard to understand why.

But thanks to his incredibly complex family life, the future of that empire could now be at stake.

Mr Ho, now 97, built the first casino in gambling mecca Macau in 1962.

He enjoyed a monopoly in the city-state for decades and today, his company, SJM Holdings Ltd, owns 19 casinos there.

He also founded a second company, Shun Tak Holdings, which has stakes in many industries including real estate, tourism, banking and more.

A multibillion-dollar fortune has been amassed — but it’s now hanging in the balance thanks to his rival wives and children.

Ageing tycoon Stanley Ho’s family life is notoriously complicated. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

Mr Ho was born in Hong Kong, where polygamy remained legal until 1971.

Over the years, he fathered 17 children with four women he referred to as his “wives” — Clementina Leitao, who died in 2004, Lucina Laam, Ina Chan and Angela Leong.

Recently, his children from second wife Lucina made an alliance with a group of shareholders from Hong Kong’s powerful Fok dynasty, meaning they now control the board of the company as they have the voting majority.

The move comes right as the company prepares a bid to renew its casino licence — which will expire in March 2020 — to allow it to remain operating in the lucrative region.

According to Bloomberg, Stanley Ho and Lucina Laam’s daughter Daisy Ho, who is now SJM chair, announced the new alliance late last month.

Stanley Ho and his wife pictured in Hong Kong in 2003. Picture: SuppliedSource:AFP

“The shareholders in the alliance all possess irreplaceable goodwill, accumulated through prolonged understanding and exposure in various industry sectors in Macau and mainland China,” she said in a subsequent interview.

“Together with Timothy Fok, who is co-chairman of SJM, we can leverage and apply these resources to further develop SJM’s competitiveness to pursue the new gaming concession.”

The stakes are especially high at the moment for two main reasons — firstly, because new players in the gambling industry have muscled in on SJM’s territory over the years, stealing away clients — and money and power.

Pansy Ho is now one of the Ho family’s most powerful players. Picture: Triple Eight Vision/Corbis via Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

And secondly, because there have been increased tensions within the sprawling family itself in recent years, dating back to 2011 when a public spat over the Ho family wealth erupted, which resulted in much of it being divided up.

Clementina Leitao Photos

And last month, nephew Michael Hotung caused further headaches for the ageing tycoon after suing his uncle and claiming he was owed $360 million in shares dividends.

While at the moment Lucina’s children — especially “key Macau players” Daisy, Pansy and Lawrence — seem to hold all the cards, questions remain regarding how Mr Ho’s other surviving wives and their children could upset the apple cart.

Lawrence Ho previously worked with James Packer. Picture: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Lawrence Ho previously had a partnership with Aussie billionaire James Packer and is now CEO of Hong Kong entertainment group Melco International Development Ltd.

Daisy Ho is the chairman and executive director of SJM Holdings as well as the CFO of Shun Tak Holdings, while sister Pansy, a former TV actress, took over as Shun Tak chairman after her father’s retirement in 2017.

Fourth wife Angela Leong — a dance instructor-turned-real estate magnate who also serves as SJM co-chair and as a Macau legislator — is considered to be a particular potential threat, although nobody has confirmed what role she will play in the company’s future.

“The other parties involved, Angela Leong in particular, also have a lot of interests and a lot of influences in Macau,” analyst Vitaly Umansky told Bloomberg.

“My biggest concern is that does this create a situation at the company and at the board that leads to a lot of infighting and that leads to things being delayed and operations of the business not performing as they should?”

Continue the conversation @carey_alexis alexis.carey@news.com.au

A rift has surfaced among gaming magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun's next of kin over his two family trusts.

Deborah Ho, a daughter of the tycoon's deceased first wife Clementina Leitao, triggered a legal action in the High Court last Tuesday by asking her elder sister, Angela Ho Chiu-yin, who is the trustee of The Clementina Ho Trust and The Stanley and Clementina Family Trusts, to provide her with deeds and documents related to changes to the trusts' arrangement.

Deborah, as a beneficiary, also requested Angela elaborate on the amount and state of property of the trusts.

Trust deeds, deeds involving removal and appointment of trustees, information of changes in the structure of the trusts, full trust accounts and financial statements and documents concerning remuneration received by Angela or other previous trustees were among the information she is seeking.

Casino tycoon Stanley Ho's son paid US$64 million for Hong Kong

Deborah also requested that her sister provide copies of all communications that had been made between Angela or other previous trustees and their legal advisers.

The minutes of three meetings between Angela and the beneficiaries, including herself, between 2013 and 2015 in her lawyers' firm, and the minutes and PowerPoint slides relating to a meeting on January 15 in the same location were also requested.

The documents must be handed over within seven days after the court made the orders.

A Friday statement Angela's lawyers issued on her behalf said it was unfortunate her sister had issued proceedings against her to obtain the documents.

It said under Angela's management, the trusts had outperformed the market and had been operating in a compliant manner. All beneficiaries' needs had been taken care of equally, and Deborah had not been denied any access to information relating to the trusts, it said.

The trusts had held annual meetings to reveal to all beneficiaries the status of its assets and performances. Deborah's questions were also addressed during the meetings.

Stanley Ho's four-decade grip on the world's biggest casino hub

'Deborah claims that she is ill in Macau and poor, and this is unfortunately a fabrication as she has received distributions annually on time and has received around HK$97 million (US$12.5 million),' it said.

Angela was quoted as saying: 'I am very sad and dismayed that all the family members have been dragged into this matter due to Deborah's unnecessary and disruptive actions.'

'King of Gambling' Stanley Ho, 98, one of Asia's richest men, monopolised the gaming industry in Macau until 2002, when the casino hub's government introduced foreign investors.

The Hong Kong-Macau business magnate co-founded SJM Holdings in 1962, which owns nineteen casinos in Macau including the Grand Lisboa. He has four wives and 17 children.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.