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March 2 - Sun International, one of South Africa's largest entertainment and hospitality conglomerates, seems to be riding out the financial storm reasonably well.
The group announced that in the six months up to December 2008, it managed to raise its revenues by 6% to R4 billion. All in all, revenue from its hospitality sectors saw an increase of 10%, while its gaming sector saw a more modest 5% rise.
Sun International announced that while it had put several expansion projects on hold because of the current global crisis, it would still be going ahead with several others.
For example, while Sun International will be putting plans to invest $167 million in the refurbishment of a hotel and permanent casino in Lagos, Nigeria on hold for the time being, it did say that it would be going ahead to invest $28 million in the acquisition of interest in the company that is operating a temporary casino in the area of the hotel.
"We are still committed to the project and still believe in it," said the Chief Executive Officer of Sun International, David Coutts-Trotter, "but we are taking smaller steps in the meantime."
Referring to plans to open a casino in Chile, Coutts-Trotter said that the group could not have chosen a worse time than October 2008 to commit to the project. "We are confident that the development will be successful," he said, "but it will take a little longer than we anticipated."
"We shall continue to grow our customer base there," he continued, "and we anticipate markedly different results by this time in 2010."
It was shown in the group's latest financial report that despite the financial crisis in South Africa and around the rest of the globe, people were still gambling.
Some top Sun International resorts include Sun City and Wild Coast Sun.
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