The man from Atlantis

He has one of the most notorious reputations in the global hospitality industry and now the self-made billionaire is preparing for what could be his most dazzling project yet. Sean Cronin meets Sol Kerzner to get the inside track on his new US$1.5bn creation.

Sol Kerzner appears a diminutive figure standing in front of the vast aquarium that forms the central feature of his new US$1.5bn Atlantis Hotel in Dubai.

The quietly spoken CEO of Kerzner International may be dwarfed by the 65,000 exotic fish and sharks feeding in the tank behind him, but there's no mistaking that in the business of building resorts, Kerzner is the biggest fish in the pond.

Few figures in the hotel business can rival the reputation of the 72 year-old billionaire tycoon, born the youngest of four children to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in a lower-class suburb of Johannesburg.

Yet despite all the mythology that surrounds his wheeling and dealing over the last 40 years - the casino deals, the marriages, the court cases and the excess and gilded opulence of projects like Sun City in South Africa - Kerzner is altogether more understated in the flesh, than the reputation that goes before him.

He recalls his first meeting six years ago with Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the chairman of state-controlled Nakheel and the developer of the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai's first palm tree-shaped island made from reclaimed sea sand.

Sultan took me out on his boat and he put the throttle down. Then it was into a four-wheel drive and in and out of the water. It seemed at the time to be an extremely ambitious undertaking," he says.

"Although he is a very bubbly man with a big personality, I also thought he was very serious about what he was doing and I had every confidence he would get it done. You have to take a view when you meet people on whether they will achieve things that have never been done before."

The pair may have seen some of themselves in the other. Both are risk-takers with no deficiencies when it comes to ‘vision', and both have delivered massive leisure projects on an unprecedented scale.

Some 25 years before the plan to build a palm tree-shaped island in Dubai was conceived, Kerzner was taking arguably bigger risks in developing Sun City, in the black "homeland" of Boputhatswana, the world's first modern casino-resort - which attracted a musicians' boycott in the early 1980s at the height of protests against South Africa's apartheid regime.

It paved the way for more collaborations and Nakheel is now a "significant" shareholder in Kerzner International, although he declines to say how much of his company is now owned by Dubai.

Other shareholders include Goldman Sachs and Baron Capital Group since the company was taken private in March 2006 in a deal worth about US$3bn.

Kerzner International is becoming increasingly aligned with Dubai and more collaborations will follow this year. Nakheel acquired 50% of Kerzner's Mexico One&Only resort earlier this year for US$315m, while Kerzner will also manage a US$150m resort being developed by Nakheel's parent Dubai World in Zanzibar.

Kerzner says more deals will follow including a new hotel project on ‘The World' project in Dubai, another artificial island project being developed by Nakheel.

Yet even by Dubai standards, Atlantis will dazzle when its doors open to the public for the first time in September. With around 1500 rooms and suites, a water park that extends over 17 hectares and some 65,000 species of marine life on show across its various water attractions, it is certain to become the biggest draw in the city overnight.

Atlantis will have the largest water park in the Middle East and a total of 16 restaurants run by chefs that include Giorgio Locatelli, Michel Rostang and Nobu Matsuhisa and Santi Santamaria - who has three Michelin stars to his name.

When businessmen talk about their first-class teams, it usually amounts to little more than a trite and banal boast, but it seems clear that Kerzner really does believe in the importance of using only the best-qualified teams to run his projects - from their initial marketing right through to construction. It's not just about the jargon with him.

In the corridors of the enormous empty building, Kerzner executives and senior managers hurry along with their pre-opening tasks to complete. They are clearly excited about the Atlantis development and everyone seems well briefed, with answers to hand for visiting reporters.

Almost three months before its planned September 24 opening date, the Atlantis project is practically complete and has been finished within budget - almost unheard of in Dubai where scarce labour and materials mean that most large construction projects are crippled by delays and cost overruns. Few finish on time.

For much of the last two years, the construction team has lived and breathed Atlantis, working six and a half-day weeks, rising to seven days in the run up to this September's opening.

Famed for being a stickler for detail, it's clear that Kerzner instills the same approach among his team at the Atlantis - the evidence is everywhere to be seen, and if you miss any of it, there is someone to point it out for you.

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