Butch, a likeable family man known to his associates as “an extremely smart and intelligent character”, relieved his father of running the business and implementing board strategies.<\/p>\n
A media business analyst told The Tribune last night: “The Bahamas has lost its leading light in tourism. He was the man responsible for implementing the visions of himself and his father, Sol.<\/p>\n
“There’s no two ways about it, he and his father have been responsible for putting the Bahamas back on the world tourism map. Without Atlantis and its success, a lot of the other foreign resort and investment projects would probably not be coming to the Bahamas.”<\/p>\n
He added: “Had the Kerzners not come here during the 1990s, Nassau would almost certainly still be a sleepy economic backwater.”<\/p>\n
He said Kerzner’s operations account for such a huge chunk of the Bahamian economy and GDP, “it’s almost frightening to think what the unemployment situation would be like without them.”<\/p>\n
Initially, associates expect the impact on the business to be primarily psychological and emotional. But long-term, Butch’s death could be seen as having a significant effect on the business itself.<\/p>\n
Although Kerzner International has a strong management structure in place, the loss leaves a big hole to be filled.<\/p>\n
The tragedy comes at a crucial time in the Kerzner organisation because Butch and his father recently led a successful buy-out that took the company private and ended its New York Stock Exchange listing.<\/p>\n
It was a $4 billion dollar deal which secured the Kerzners an estimated 25 per cent stake in the business.<\/p>\n
Butch considered this to be important because it gave him and his father a greater share of the rewards from the risk they were taking in the company’s international expansion projects.<\/p>\n
Apart from the Atlantis Phase Three expansion, Kerzner International is also developing the Atlantis, The Palm resort in Dubai in partnership with that nation’s government.<\/p>\n
The company is also looking at casino projects in Morocco, UK and Singapore.<\/p>\n
The analyst said: “Butch was seen as a young, dynamic visionary who did not rise to the top just because he was his father’s son.<\/p>\n
“Sol Kerzner saw him as the man to take the company forward and the heir apparent.<\/p>\n
He was happy to leave the everyday business in his hands because he knew he was a young man of sound judgment.”<\/p>\n
Business people in the Bahamas felt that Butch inherited his father’s remarkable entrepreneurial flair. An associate said: “He was a very pleasant, down-to-earth guy whose manner belied his great wealth. He obviously had tremendous ability, but he never lost that ordinary bloke demeanour of his.<\/p>\n
“He liked good books, loved his family and was a keen keep-fit man who liked to jog along the Eastern Road. In Talking to him socially. you would never guess that he had so much on his plate.”<\/p>\n
Ironically, Sol Kerzner, in an interview with The Tribune eight years ago, listed “the safety of my family members” as his greatest fear.<\/p>\n
Source: The Tribune<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Butch Kerzner – was not only heir apparent to the family business, he was also the day-to-day operational chief for Kerzner International, which has resort interests all over the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}