Lawrence Ho denies agreement with CSH in Marianas

Lawrence Ho, Melco Crown’s CEO and son of casino mogul Stanley Ho, yesterday denied any current or future co-operation with Chinese Strategic Holdings (CSH) regarding a hotel management investment in the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands are located in the Pacific Ocean and are a US territory with Commonwealth status.
‘The company clarifies that the company, its subsidiaries and Mr. Ho do not and will not in the foreseeable future have any business co-operation with CSH’, wrote Melco International Development in a filing submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Ho’s reaction came after rumours in the media that Melco was the company behind the agreement CSH announced last month. In a filing with the HK bourse, Chinese Strategic said it ‘has been in negotiations with a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ regarding a possible co-operation in the hotel management and investment in Northern Mariana’.
The NASDAQ company, CSH added, was also ‘a subsidiary of a reputable casino gaming group active in the Asia Pacific region operating a hotel-casino complex including one of the only six companies granted concessions or sub-concessions by the government of the Macau Special Administrative Region to operate casinos in Macau’. It was this sentence that sparked the rumours that Melco was the casino operator behind the agreement. The unknown Macau gaming operator would provide CSH assistance for the possible application of a gaming licence of and for the new hotel complex plus the rendering of consultancy services in negotiations with the government and relevant regulatory authorities.