Inside Asian Gaming

September 2014 inside asian gaming 51 Mr Ho has said of Mr Yeung, “No difficulties can baffle him, nor are there any hurdles he cannot overcome.” The compliment perhaps stems partly from gratitude for the profits Mr Ho derived from his Do Son casino in Vietnam, made possible by a casino license Mr Yeung had sold him. According to Albert Yeung’s official biography, published in 2012, Mr Yeung had acquired the license in 1993 but chose not to pursue it after being told “It’s not time yet” by a long-trusted feng shui master, leading him to hawk it immediately to Mr Ho. Do Son went on to record a decade of profits but has since slipped into the red. The time for Mr Yeung to develop his own casino came in 1995, after he joined a delegation of Hong Kong business people visiting North Korea at a time when Pyongyang was seeking to develop its Rason economic zone bordering China and Russia. The Emperor Resort & Casino in Rason opened in 1999 and mostly serves Chinese players making the hour’s drive across the border. Mr Yeung has been dogged by controversy, too, including allegations of involvement in organized crime and graft, which he has repeatedly denied. Last year, he filed an injunction against Google seeking to compel the Internet search giant to take down automatic search suggestions featuring allegedly libelous content that links him to triad groups. The trial is ongoing after an August ruling by Hong Kong’s High Court that rejected Google’s attempt to halt the case. Mr Yeung is reported to have close ties with some of Beijing’s top officials and Hong Kong’s property tycoons. As he said in his biography: “Li Ka Shing, Cheng Yu Tung and [Stanley] Ho Hung Sun all attach great importance to our friendship. This proves that I am not really bad.” With all of 66 table games it would look to be a difficult swim for Louis XIII in the wave of megaresorts coming to Cotai—but Stephen Hung has a flair for luxury of the over-the-top kind and a singular vision for how he’ll be bringing that to life at the boutique casino he plans to open early in 2016 at the far south end of the booming Macau resort district. The literature says Louis XIII will be “the first of a series of ultra luxurious lifestyle experiences the Group is planning to offer the world’s wealthiest,” and Mr Hung fully expects the destination he has in mind will stand alone at the very top end of the local market, and that won’t be easy either in a market where $150,000 bets are run-of- the-mill. But then he breathes such rarefied air in the normal course of his day and flaunts the fact with fingers and wrists that sparkle with diamonds, a fleet of Italian sports cars, a fashion model wife, a rolodex of the rich and famous and his trademark candy-colored locks. But don’t let this obscure the fact that he’s a financier of some repute, a former vice chairman of eSun Holdings who at one time co-headed investment banking for Asia at Merrill Lynch—at 33 he founded his own firm, Amida Capital Group—and funding for Louis XIII’s HK$6.4 billion budget has been secured with an array of big- name lenders, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Deutsche Bank and HSBC among them. The all-important gaming license is not in hand, at least not to date, but Mr Hung has a casino operating agreement dating back to 2008 with an unnamed “concession or subconcession,” believed to be Melco Crown Entertainment. Melco has a longstanding relationship with a well-known Hong Kong construction management and services company that Louis XIII owns, Paul Y. Engineering, which has done work for Altira Macau and has had a hand in the ongoing construction of Melco’s Studio City on Cotai. Mr Hung’s connections Stephen Hung Co-Chairman and Executive Director Louis XIII Holdings extend to SJM as well. He’s vice chairman of Rio Entertainment Group, operator of the Rio Hotel & Casino, a sub-licensee of SJM’s on the Macau peninsula. Senior management is in place, headed by Macau gaming veteran Walt Power as CEO, a roster that includes executives from Banyan Tree, Lan Kwai Fong Group, Keppel Land, Melco Crown and The Venetian Macao. Additional marketing mileage is provided courtesy of Mr Hung’s “Special Advisor,” a fashion designer by the name of Tania de Bourbon Parme, “Her Royal Highness,” as she’s titled on the Web site, reputedly a descendant of the last kings of France. Heading interior and exterior design is acclaimed New York architect Peter Marino, who’s designed flagship stores for Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Christian Dior and Mr Hung’s friends the diamond merchants Laurence and Francois Graff, who will operate an outlet at Louis XIII. Renderings show a swirling tower of red leaves encircling glass and crowned with a 20-meter “diamond,” a fitting package for the 238 suites and villas planned for the inside, whose offerings will include an invitation-only “Atelier” whose prices start at $1 million and the only Michelin three-star L’Ambroisie outside Paris.