Tycoon Stanley Ho's youngest son buys HK$500 million home

When Mr Mario Ho's elder sister Sabrina got engaged to Harvard student Thomas Xin in June last year, she was reportedly given a HK$500 million (S$89.4 million) property.

Now, news has surfaced that Mr Ho, the youngest son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, has bought a HK$500 million home in Deep Water Bay, one of Hong Kong's prime property locales.

According to The Standard portal, the younger Ho bought the home at 2 Island Road last month when he turned 25.

The Ho family previously bought two properties at 2 Island Road. It is not known if one of them was gifted to Ms Sabrina Ho, 29, who runs a company promoting arts and culture in Macau. There is talk that Mr Mario Ho's mother paid for the purchase, though she fended off media queries by saying the focus for now should be on the coronavirus situation in Hong Kong, where one death has been recorded so far.

Mr Mario Ho's mother Angela Leong, who is Mr Stanley Ho's fourth wife, is co-chairman and an executive director of SJM Holdings.

Mr Mario Ho, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate who is chief executive of a software development platform, previously shut down talk that he had a baby with wife Ming Xi last year to get a bigger cut of the family fortune. Mr Stanley Ho, 98, is reportedly not in the best of health.

Posting in November, Mr Mario Ho, who married the 30-year-old Chinese supermodel in July, said the distribution of the assets had been decided a long time ago and that he did not need more money.

Xi, who gave birth to a boy called Ronaldo in October, was reportedly given 500 million yuan (S$99 million) when she got married.

The youngest son of the Ho family also posted earlier last year about his mother's wish to have a grandson, saying that he would get 100 million yuan.

With so much money floating around, one person outside the Ho family has benefited.

The owner of the property bought by Mr Mario Ho had originally paid only HK$18.8 million in 1990.