This as rumours have been swirling locally that the gaming giant has been planning on backing off from the Windmill Casino in Bloemfontein, following closures of two long-standing hotels in Central South Africa namely the Carousel in the North West and Thaba’Nchu Sun 70 kilometres away from the Free State capital. 

Sun International Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Anthony Leeming, warns that this does not mean the company as a whole is completely out of the woods yet and they remain in the midst of a restructuring process. 

Meanwhile, the easing of lockdown restrictions has enabled other industries and businesses to begin the long road to recovery, but not gaming centred businesses like Sun International.

Lockdown level three enables places of accommodation to open their doors for businesses travellers. This, however, does not automatically bode well for Sun International - the revenue of which is mostly derived from gaming, with leisure making up the rest of the revenue. 

Leeming says the easing of restrictions has in fact not really benefited their operations at all.  He says the uncertainty around when they will be permitted to reopen casinos, hotels and resorts makes “accurate staff requirement forecasts very challenging”. He does indicate that the number of retrenchments hinges on the length of the time their facilities remain closed, the time to get back to trading and overstaffing which existed prior to the lockdown.  

This is an indicator that while there are no more closures predicted at Sun International, there are more retrenchments in the pipeline. 

Leeming says they remain in consultation with the South African Catering Commercial Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) about said retrenchments.

Sun International announced the closures of the struggling Carousel Hotel and Casino as well as Naledi Sun, in late April. Both hotels were located in areas that previously fell under the former Bophuthatswana Bantu homeland pre-1994. 

While the closure of Naledi Sun will reportedly result in the retrenchment of 66 employees from the area, it is unknown how many employees at the Carousel Hotel and Casino will be left out in the lurk due to the closure. 

Sun International has attributed the decision to financial constraints caused by reduced gambling activities as well as a weakened economy prior to the lockdown. The situation then became dire, when the lockdown restrictions were eventually imposed.  

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