Now chief secretary's car gets in on the double-parking act
There's been a significant development in the car parking saga we have been pursuing for some weeks -albeit with precious little effect. People have e-mailed us complaining of the double-parking that occurs on Glenealy, the road that bends down underneath Upper Albert Road ending at the traffic lights opposite The Fringe Club. An eagle-eyed observer writes to say that on Tuesday at 14.03 hours he observed the official car of the chief secretary, Stephen Lam Sui-lung, illegally double-parked on this stretch of road, though the chief secretary himself was not present. A fine example for the rest of us and particularly the seven-seater crowd. This is hardly a resignation issue, though it's hard to tell what is these days. But we feel the chief secretary's driver, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion.
To be, or not to be ...
Browsing through Melco Crown Entertainment's Hong Kong listing prospectus, we came across a noteworthy section that talks about the relationship between co-chairman Lawrence Ho Yau-lung, the son of Macau gaming magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun, and other companies associated with members of his family.
Through a chain of holding companies largely controlled by his siblings (Pansy, Daisy, Maisy and Josie), Lawrence owns an indirect, effective 2.769 per cent stake in Shun Tak Holdings and an indirect 1.347 per cent stake in rival gaming company SJM Holdings.
Lawrence maintained a low profile throughout the very public family battle at the beginning of this year over control of Stanley Ho's business empire, a dispute that mainly featured his father's third and fourth wives and the children of his second wife, of whom Pansy is the oldest. Yesterday, he made it very clear where he stood. Melco Crown's prospectus states that Lawrence 'is not, and does not intend to be, a director of SJM.' It used the same language regarding rival Macau casino firm MGM China, too, in which sister Pansy has a 27.4 per cent stake. But when discussing Shun Tak, the language in the listing document varied ever so slightly: 'Lawrence Ho is not, and currently has no intention to be, a director of Shun Tak.' The question then arises: So what about in the future? Lawrence was asked this yesterday at a press conference. 'I think that must be a typo,' he said, referring to the prospectus. 'I have never, ever been involved in those so-called 'Ho Empire' type of companies,' he told a roomful of reporters. 'This [Melco Crown] has always been my baby. So I don't have any intentions and I don't think I have any future intentions either,' he said. 'We should have put an exclamation mark in [the prospectus],' he joked. Hmm but one of the lessons of history is that we should never say never.