Two ways to place your bets on the Chinese Las Vegas

The more the Chinese earn, the more they gamble and the more they shop. Hence the rapid growth of Macao. Merryn Somerset Webb picks two of the best plays on property in the resort.

When I was a stockbroker I used to go to Hong Kong every few months. I'd fly in from Tokyo and spend two days having a series of excruciatingly dull meetings.

I can't say I ever liked it much. Not only did the days drag (Hong Kong looks nice at first but the view soon palls), but the evenings weren't up to much either. They were spent in a series of expat bars buying drinks for the same clients I'd already spent much of the day wishing I wasn't with.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.