HONG KONG (Reuters) – Lui Che Woo, the on line casino tycoon who helped propel Macau to eclipse rival Las Vegas in playing revenues, has died on the age of 95, his firm stated in an announcement late on Monday.
Lui, chairman of Macau on line casino firm Galaxy Leisure (OTC:), died in Hong Kong on Nov. 7, it stated, including that his “imaginative and prescient, large management and steering” had been the inspiration for the group’s growth and continued success.
Additionally the chairman of Okay. Wah Group, a Hong Kong-listed firm targeted on building and quarry mining earlier than turning to property, Lui was broadly recognised in each Hong Kong and Macau as an influential businessman with shut ties to the Chinese language authorities.
One among Hong Kong’s richest males, Lui stored a low profile and was at all times seen carrying a flat cap as he went concerning the metropolis and when he attended press conferences.
A member of China’s nationwide advisory physique, the Chinese language Folks’s Political Consultative Convention, Lui had shut ties to Beijing and was a part of a enterprise delegation that met with President Xi Jinping in 2014 in China’s capital.
Galaxy Leisure holds one in every of six coveted gaming licenses that had been granted after Macau liberalised the on line casino business in 2002.
Competing with rivals just like the now deceased Stanley Ho, whose household runs the SJM Holdings (OTC:) on line casino empire, the late U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:) founder Steve Wynn, Lui steered Galaxy to grow to be of Macau’s prime operators.
It operates a number of massive on line casino resorts in Macau, each on the Las Vegas-style Cotai strip and on the teeming principal peninsula.
EARLY LIFE
Born on Aug. 9, 1929, in Jiangmen metropolis positioned in China’s southern province of Guangdong, Lui moved to Hong Kong along with his household aged 4. Throughout Japan’s occupation of the territory within the Forties, Lui began working in a meals manufacturing and distribution enterprise on the age of 13.
He then went on to begin companies in automobile components, heavy equipment, quarrying and building supplies, based on his 2017 biography.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, he switched to property investments and added motels to his portfolio of companies within the Nineteen Eighties.
His firm Okay. Wah has over 200 subsidiaries globally, together with in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and southeast Asia.
A outstanding philanthropist, Lui supported the event of medical care, schooling and data expertise.
He additionally supplied an annual money award of HK$20 million ($2.57 million) to people or organisations who “unselfishly promoted world civilisation via sustainable growth, contributions to the welfare of mankind and promotion of optimistic life perspective,” based on Okay.Wah.
MACAU EMPIRE
Lui, who’s survived by his spouse Chiu Kam Ping and 5 kids, remained closely concerned within the on line casino business, even whereas handing a lot of the day after day working of Galaxy to his son Francis.
Francis, who’s Galaxy’s deputy chairman, has been key in creating the corporate’s tasks in Macau, the place it owns probably the most land of all of the operators on the Cotai strip. Lui’s different kids are additionally concerned in varied components of the household enterprise world wide.
Galaxy’s Macau properties embrace large-scale resorts on Cotai with amenities together with the territory’s largest indoor area, which was unveiled final December.
A brand new Galaxy chairman shall be introduced in “due course” the corporate stated, including that Lui’s dying wouldn’t have any influence on the group’s operations.
($1 = 7.7756 Hong Kong {dollars})
