Dow Jones Newswires report the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China’s biggest bank measured by assets, is in talks to acquire Seng Heng Bank, a Macau bank controlled by gambling mogul Stanley Ho.

Stanley Ho, (born November 25, 1921), is an entrepreneur in Hong Kong and Macau. Ho is sometimes nicknamed ‘The King of Gambling’, reflecting the government-granted monopoly he held of the Macau gambling industry for over 35 years.

Ho is the wealthiest person in Macau, and one of the wealthiest in Asia. According to Forbes, he tied for 104th rank among the world’s richest people in 2007. He owns many properties in both Hong Kong and Macau and has taken part in many kinds of business including entertainment, tourism, shipping, real estate, banking, and air transport.

And, as an odd aside, he once served the writer wine at dinner while wearing an eighteenth century footman’s wig. That was not his full-time job. And the wig did not suit him.

The Financial Times reports talks have been under way between the two sides for three months.

Ho owns the bank through his casino operator Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, which has a 12.08% stake in Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Shun Tak Holdings which acquired the bank in 1989.

Seng Heng, with assets of US$3.2 billion, is Macau’s second-largest locally incorporated bank after Tai Fung Bank.

ICBC’s Chairman Jiang Jianqing said in a Hong Kong briefing on its first-half results that the bank was open to the idea of overseas acquisitions as a means of lowering its foreign currency exposure.
Source: Shanghai Daily and research.