FB Roundup Christopher Cheng, Lawrence Ho, Alice Walton
Henry Cheng promotes son in family office
Henry Cheng, the chairman of the family flagship firms Chow Tai Fook Jewellery and New World Development, has promoted his son Christopher Cheng to be co-chief executive officer of Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
Christopher will be in charge of North Asia investment for Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
This now means that four of his children hold positions within the company. Adrian is chief executive of real estate developer New World Development Co, his daughter Sonia holds the position of joint vice-chairman for Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group while Brian is co-chief executive of the family’s infrastructure-to-insurance conglomerate NWS Holdings.
Henry Cheng remains at the helm of the family office and is the chairman of all three companies.
As we reported in November last year, the succession plans of the family remain closely watched, especially after Cheng himself said that the “family business is still looking for a successor”. It is believed that he made the statement as his family has businesses in many different sectors and, as a result, has been unable to find an individual to take interests forward as a whole. At least nine family members work in the group’s network
According to Forbes, Chen is worth $22.1 billion. He is the elder son of Cheng Yu-tung who founded the Hong Kong-listed New World Development and built the family fortune from jewellery and real estate.
Chow Tai Fook's Hong Kong Stock Exchange code 1929 commemorates the year that the jewellery chain was founded in Guangzhou, China.
Lawrence Ho’s SPAC raises $150 million
Lawrence Ho, chairman of Macau casino operator Melco Resorts & Entertainment and the oldest son of Macau casino legend Stanley Ho, has raised $150 million via an initial public offering for his special acquisition vehicle (SPAC) Black Spade Acquisition II.
The SPAC sold 15 million primary units at $10 each. Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share and one-third of one redeemable warrant, with each whole warrant exercisable to purchase one Class A ordinary share at a price of $11.50 per share.
Clear Street and Cohen & Company Capital Markets, a division of JVB Financial Group, acted as joint book-running managers. Latham & Watkins served as legal counsel to the company while Loeb & Loeb served as legal counsel to the underwriters.
In a statement, the company said that it believes that “the entertainment, lifestyle and technology industries, particularly those that are major beneficiaries of artificial intelligence, provide ample business combination opportunities”.
This is Ho's second move outside gambling. In 2021, he listed his first SPAC in the US raising $169 million. It proved a success and in August last year, it merged with Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast, now called VinFast Auto.
Expectations had been that Ho's second SPAC would find a home in Hong Kong, but eventually, New York captured the deal.
The moves outside gambling make sense. Ho is back on the Forbes list with an estimated personal fortune of $1.2 billion, but his business has struggled with Beijing's crackdown on gambling.
Alice Walton tops world’s richest woman list
Alice Walton has raced to the top of the richest woman in the world list according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with the title of centibillionaire within reach.
The daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton has enjoyed a 43% boom in Walmart shares this year which has seen her personal fortune rise to $95.7 billion.
She holds a stake of around 11% of the group.
This has dethroned Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the owner of cosmetics giant L’Oréal, who was the richest woman in the world last year. A sluggish performance in China’s beauty market has seen her fortune plummet to $89.9 billion.
She holds around 35% of the beauty group via her family holding company Téthys.
Walton ranks as the 18th richest person in the world and shares her stake in Walmart along with her three brothers, Rob, Jim, and John.
After graduation, she briefly worked for the group as a buyer of children's clothes in the family company before moving into finance. After a stint as an equity analyst for First Commerce Corporation, she started her own investment bank, Llama, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the late 1980s to focus on corporate finance, public and structured finance, real estate finance as well as sales and trading. The bank wound up in the late 1990s.
Since then, she has become better known as a philanthropist and supporter of the arts. Inspired by a print of Picasso's “Blue Nude” bought when she was 11, in 2011, she opened the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in her hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Since 2017, she has run the Alice L Walton Foundation which is committed to increasing access to the arts, improving education, enhancing health, and advancing economic opportunity.
