Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2012 16 Asian Gaming 50 – 2012 11 Angela Leong Executive Director SJMHoldings Casino operator, corporate executive, developer and entrepreneur, lawmaker, political advisor, philanthropist, mother of five—few individuals, let alone females, play as multifarious and influential a role in the world of Asian gaming as Angela Leong. Stanley Ho’s sister Winnie records in her autobiography how the tycoon himself paid tribute to the ambition of the redoubtable “Fourth Wife”, who “Unlike other women would rather venture into business than simply take 100,000 Macanese patacas [a month].” Tough, resolute, as quick a study as they come in the lineaments of power, the 51-year-old Guangzhou native, the youngest and the last of Dr Ho’s consorts, enlivens what can be the most bloodless of industries with a true Cinderella story. Born Xuan Wei Ling in the privileged household of an officer in the PLA, her childhood abruptly came to an end at 13 when her father died. Forced to fend for her family, she entered a state- run dance school, where she excelled and won a coveted spot in a renowned Guangdong dance troupe. At 20 she left for Macau to seek her fortune. She began teaching dance and aerobics. She saved her money. She dabbled in real estate. She changed her name to Liang Anqi. She did it for luck. It would prove auspicious. One of her students was a brother of Stanley Ho. He wrangled her a day job in one of the count rooms of STDM, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, the casino monopoly Dr Ho had held for decades. He also introduced her to his billionaire sibling, an avid ballroom dancer and 30 years her senior. Whether it was love at first dip must be left to the imagination. Today, “Fourth Wife” is the largest individual shareholder in the largest casino operator in the largest gambling market on the planet. She is a director of STDM, SJM Holdings’ majority shareholder, and holds one of STDM’s largest personal equity stakes. She owns 10% of SJM’s operating company, Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, where she serves as managing director. Her real estate holdings, described as “vast”by TheWall Street Journal , include a reputed 45%of L’ArcMacau, a 56-story mixed-use colossus containing a hotel, private residences, retail shops and a 10,000-square-meter casino that operates as a “satellite”of SJM’s gambling concession, one of 14 such venues in the company’s portfolio. One of the really fascinating elements of this rags-to-riches tale is the ability it has conferred on its heroine to shape the future of the industry, of the city where she has made her fortune, and of greater China. She has readily grasped it, too, serving as a member of the Jiangxi Provincial and Zhuhai Municipal committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and working through a second term in the Macau Legislative Assembly as a representative of one of several pro-business, pro-Beijing factions. Her charity work notably includes a longstanding involvement with Po Leung Kuk, a 130-year-old institution founded in Hong Kong to provide services to needy women and girls. As an operator she has acquired a reputation as a solid contributor to SJM’s growth in an increasingly competitivemarketplace, reflected, in part, in the fact that for several years now she has headed the trade group representing the city’s junket operators and promoters. “She’s got relationships with big players,” an executive with a competing concession once said of her, “and she can move money.” Since winning effective control of SJM last year, Ms Leong has been talking up a non-gaming leisure complex she believes would go a long way toward diversifying Macau’s tourist offering. Priced at more than US$1 billion, consisting of several resort hotels and a theme park featuring an indoor beach and an equestrian center, it’s probably on hold for now while SJM continues to monitor a worrisome softness in the VIP sector and waits for the government to approve its application for land that will enable it to jump into the fray on Cotai. Ms Leong, needless to say, is undaunted. She is, she said in a 2011 interview in the Journal , like the ballerina in the hit movie “Black Swan”. “I felt just like that as a child dancer,” she said, “dancing until the skin came off. It hurts, but you still practice. If you’re injured, you keep dancing. When some people do something, they do it for two minutes and they’re done. When I do something now, I must do it for one hour.” 12 Linda Chen Executive Director and COO Wynn Macau Director ,Wynn Resorts Linda Chen isn’t the only woman to hold a position of prominence in Asian gaming. She isn’t the most powerful either, depending on how you define that term. But there is not another in the industry who can lay claim to the breadth of her hands-on experience, her institutional knowledge or the respect in which she is held by her peers. And for sure she is the only one with the lucky digits 8888 as part of her mobile phone number, a personal gift from her boss and biggest fan, Steve Wynn. Touted by Forbes earlier this year as a possible successor to the billionaire chairman of Wynn Resorts and Wynn Macau, the 45-year-old Ms Chen heads strategic development and overall marketing for the five-star Wynn portfolio in Macau, which in the next few years will include an even grander monument to luxury escapism on Cotai, while as president of Wynn International Marketing her responsibilities extend to the Las Vegas Strip as well, vesting her with a global perspective shared by few in the industry. Low-key,effective,eminentlywell-connected—sheisamemberof the Nanjing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Macau) and Mr Wynn’s personal representative to the