Sol Kerzner blew back into his home town last week for the launch of the School of Tourism & Hospitality at the University of Johannesburg (UofJ) and to detail the expansion plans of his New York-listed group, Kerzner International.
The group contains three categories of operation: destination resorts (the Atlantis brand and one-offs), one-of-a-kind luxury hotels (One&Only) and gaming. For the quarter to end-June, they have produced adjusted earnings of US$37m, about 20% up on the same quarter last year.
While his son Butch manages the company, Kerzner concentrates on what he loves most, “conceptualising and designing projects and getting involved on the construction side”.
Kerzner, who turned 70 on August 23 and celebrated the event at Monaco’s Sporting Club, has donated R20m (US$3.1 million) to the state-of-the-art, R47m (US$7.4 million) School of Tourism & Hospitality.
“Having been in the SA industry for so many years, and having so much faith in its future, this was an opportunity for me, my family and my company to give something back,” he says. “And to my mind there couldn’t be a more important area of hospitality and tourism than skills training.”
Though it is after 6.30 pm, Kerzner has a bottle of mineral water in his hand. This is because, after what he sardonically describes as “40 years’ practice”, he has quit the heavy-drinking habit he was as famous for as his workaholism and fake tough-neighbourhoods-of-New-York accent.
Apart from being sober, he is also back to what he calls his “fighting weight”, a reference to the welterweight boxing champion title he held at Wits in the mid-1950s.
From: The Nassau Guardian
