Macau’s gaming magnate, Stanley Ho, invests in Angola

The daughter of the Angolan president has joined up with Stanley Ho to develop casinos in Angola and is negotiating available and planned casinos for the country with Kundy Paihama’s Plurijogos, according to last week’s Africa Monitor newsletter.

The same source added that Plurijogos lost the contract for managing the casino at the new five-star Hotel Intercontinental, currently in its final phase of construction, to Ho and Isabel dos Santos. This hotel and three more towers being built in that location belong to a consortium between Sonangol and the Suninvest Group, usually known as the “arm” of the Jose Eduardo dos Santos Foundation for investments.

Also the future casino at the Gika Complex in Luanda, which had been promised to Plurijogos, is now also going to be managed by the company belonging to Isabel dos Santos and Stanley Ho, according to the macauhub agency. Currently, Plurijogos owns the casino at the Hotel Tivoli and the Embaixador houses, as part of the exclusive management of casinos in Luanda.

For a long time Ho's gaming company has wanted to gain entry to the Angolan market, which was initially supposed to happen via the Estoril Sol, the Macau businessman's Portuguese gaming concessionary.

Mário Assis Ferreira, director of the Portuguese concessionary, said even at the time of Casino Lisboa’s inauguration, that as soon as the investment of close to 100 million euros of Portuguese capital reached cruising speed, the objective would be not only Angola, but also Mozambique, Brazil and Spain.

The Portuguese concessionary runs European biggest casino, the Casino do Estoril near Lisbon. Via his Geocapital holding, Stanley Ho is also present in Mozambique’s financial sector (Moza Banco), Guinea Bissau (Banco da África Ocidental) and is preparing operations in East Timor and Cape Verde.

At the end of 2008, the partnership between Stanley Ho’s and Ferro Ribeiro’s Geocapital and the Angolan state-owned oil company Sonangol was announced - the Geopactum through which Ho and Ferro Ribeiro got a stake in Banco Privado Atlântico (BPA).

This partnership has implications for the management of Portuguese biggest private bank Millennium bcp, since the Angolans hold 10 % of the Capital and Stanley Ho around 3 %, making it the main force within the board of directors.

Geocapital's initial plans for Angola include a stake in Kundi Paihama’s Banco Angolano de Negócios e Comércio (BANC), turning it towards the Chinese community, through investments in the private sector, with credit granting or share purchase. Isabel dos Santos has established herself over recent years as one of the most influential figures in the Angolan, and even the Portuguese, business worlds.

She has significant investments in Portuguese bank BPI, in Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA), in Portuguese bank BIC, in Unitel (Angolan mobile operator), in Portugal Telecom (PT) and she is a partner of Américo Amorim, with whom she holds stakes in Galp Energia, through the company Amorim Energia.